speech therapy

What happens to young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) once they graduate high school and are no longer entitled to services? In a first-of-its-kind study, Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, looked at rates of service use among young adults with an ASD during their first few years after leaving high school. He found that 39.1 percent of these youths received no speech therapy, mental health, medical diagnostics or case management services. Shattuck also found that the odds of not receiving any services were more than three times higher for African-American young adults compared with white young adults and more than five times higher for those with incomes of $25,000 or less relative to those with incomes over $75,000.

Approximately 1 million stroke victims suffer from a condition called aphasia, which can affect reading, writing, speaking or understanding speech. Generally, speech therapists rely on their own experience and intuition to determine treatment for these patients, but a multidisciplinary research team from the School of Medicine has developed a speech rehabilitation program using the same evidence-based approach used by physicians and surgeons.