Alison Prahl
Individuals with intellectual disabilities and disorders (IDD) have a friend in Alison Prahl, whose research uncovers pathways to literacy. Prahl, assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at Baylor, leads Baylor’s Language Impairment and Down Syndrome Lab, and her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health. In this Baylor Connections, she discusses common misconceptions about literacy and disability, unpacks research designed to improve literacy and shares more about the opportunity to meet with families with IDD to address their needs.
Transcript
DEREK SMITH:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors and more, discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we are visiting with Allison Prahl. Dr. Prahl serves as Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Baylor, a certified Speech Language Pathologist. Dr. Prahl's research focuses on understanding and improving language and literacy outcomes for children and young adults with intellectual disabilities. She earned a National Institutes of Health, Early-Career Research Award to study the effect of a reading intervention utilizing functional, technology-based texts for young people with intellectual disabilities. Prior to joining the Baylor faculty, she served as Speech Language Pathologist in a Texas School District before pursuing her PhD at Vanderbilt. Doing a lot of exciting work here at Baylor and I know it's a busy time. Dr. Prahl, really appreciate you being with us today. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah, happy to be here.
DEREK SMITH:
Yeah. Glad to highlight the work that you're doing. As an overview, if we were to look at your calendar or shadow you around a little bit, who might we find you interacting with over the course of a semester at Baylor? Certainly your students, but are there other populations with whom you work or you come into contact as you do what you do?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. Like you said, definitely interacting a lot with undergrad and graduate students who are involved with the research projects. A large body of my work right now is predominantly with young adults who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. And so we're interacting with those folks, as well as their families and other support staff who work with them. Then we've got, at any given time, maybe some other studies going on in the lab too. Those may incorporate children and their families who have a primary-language impairment, and we just try to spread that information with the local community here in Waco.
DEREK SMITH:
As we visit here over the next 20 minutes or so, you'll talk about serving individuals with intellectual disorders or disabilities. What are some examples of those that you serve most commonly?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. Some common examples include Down syndrome or autism spectrum disorder, and then there's many other reasons or idiopathic causes of intellectual disabilities as well.
DEREK SMITH:
Yeah. Well, those are two for sure that most everyone either knows someone or has a family member or someone close to them who lives with that. Let's zoom out a little bit. Dr. Prahl, I gave a brief description of your research focus at the top of the show. Can you take us inside that a little more thoroughly? How would you describe your focus and the things that drive you?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. One way to describe it is really my research focuses on two different clinical populations. The first of which are children who have a primary-language impairment. These children may have difficulty learning vocabulary or learning grammar or telling stories. Even just being able to tell their parents how their day was at school when they get home at the end of the day. A lot of times these difficulties in areas of language also lead to difficulties in learning how to read. And so that's one clinical population we're interested in supporting those children, to just continue strengthening those skills and try to improve their outcomes. The other clinical population like I mentioned population, is both children and young adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. We would say they experience some of those similar difficulties, that language area. But it's secondary often to the cause of the intellectual disability like Down syndrome or other disorders. And so my goal with both of these populations is just to work with other key stakeholders. Whether that's teachers or parents or speech-language pathologists to identify areas of needs. What are the gaps in what they have to work with? And then to work collaboratively with them to either create or evaluate different interventions or supports. That, again, help them improve their ability to either understand language and communication or use their language, as well as to improve their overall reading outcomes.
DEREK SMITH:
Visiting with Dr. Allison Prahl, and we're going to talk to you on the program about some of the ways you approached that. But to get to know you a little bit better, could you take us back to what drew you into this area? When did you first discover an interest in serving the language needs of people with intellectual disorders and what would you say motivated you in that?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. As an undergraduate student, my college had a preschool program for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities or IDD. It was really close to the dorm I was in my freshman year, and so I just started volunteering at that inclusive preschool program throughout undergrad. Then I eventually, during my master's program, was able to get some clinical-training experience with those students as part of my program, and they couldn't keep me away. I loved getting to learn alongside the teachers and interact with the kids and the students there. I always just left with feeling so much joy and just got to see, I was really impressed by how impactful a truly inclusive, enriching preschool experience was for those kids. And so they've always just had a special place in my heart from those early volunteer experiences.
DEREK SMITH:
Now I know from there you worked in a local school district. You went back and got your PhD. What was the path like that brought you from there to eventually Baylor? What was it that led you to Baylor to do the work that you're talking about?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah, that's a great question. I'm from Texas originally and can't hold this against me, but I went to TCU for undergrad and my master's.
DEREK SMITH:
Fair enough. That's all right. Yeah.
ALISON PRAHL:
I've always been aware of Baylor. It's always been on the radar. As I was nearing the end of my PhD program, it was a time where the CSD or Communication Sciences and Disorders Department here at Baylor was expanding quite rapidly. In light of some very generous donors benefiting our department, and so that just lined up. Then as I reflected on my own educational experience and as a learner myself, I really have always valued smaller class sizes where I was able to get to know my professors. I think that's one of the beauties of private institutions. And so even though now the roles are reversed where I'm not the student or the learner, that more, I guess, opportunity to get to know faculty better. To get to know my students better was something that was just really important to me when I was applying for faculty positions. That's one thing. Then another thing I would definitely say is just Baylor's Christian mission. For me, my Catholic faith is really important to me. And so being at a place where I can bring that with me to my work and my research. Also just have an opportunity to work alongside so many people who are great models of just leading with servant hearts, is definitely another thing that I love most about Baylor.
DEREK SMITH:
That's great. Visiting with Dr. Allison Prahl here on Baylor Connection. You came to Baylor and you're doing this work. To understand this a little bit further, for those of us outside of your area, you mentioned Down syndrome and autism. Most of us know someone we care about who has an individual with one of those in their families, so that's one connection. But just the scope of the challenges that individuals with disorders face as it relates to language, functional literacy. Whether it's stats, experiences, what are some of the things you would like people to know that are out there?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah, that's a great question. We see this term in the literature that's literate invisibility. The idea is that many people consider individuals with IDD as just not being capable of becoming literate. People have this misconception that they will not be able to learn how to read and because of this, their potential for learning how to read is invisible. That's where the term literate invisibility comes from. Again, just this misconception and biases about individuals with IDD, including literate invisibility often leads to they just aren't given a chance. They're not given the opportunity to foster and develop their reading and language skills, which then perpetuates that original bias, but it's more because they've just never been taught. They've never been given the chance because we know they can learn how to read. Everyone can learn how to read. It's a lifelong skill. I'm still developing as a reader myself. I constantly come across new vocabulary words, new words that I can add to my knowledge base. And so I think we've got a lot of work to do just to recognize the power of literacy, and that everyone that's part of our human dignity that we can learn to read. I also think back to my experiences working in the public schools as a speech language pathologist. Based on that, and then just talking with lots of families over the years, I think oftentimes in the schools, the primary focus is on maybe one small part of reading. We'll teach children with disabilities sight words and we celebrate, "Oh, this week they learned how to read, stop, and and, and exit." But then it quickly just stops or somehow falls off the map. The reality is reading's really hard. It's a really complex process. It's something I think many of us probably take for granted, but at the same time, we all read every single day. Maybe you have to read in your job or even beyond work now it's everywhere. You read to communicate, whether it's texting someone or reading their response or reading an email. Those apps on our phone that we engage with day in and day out, you have to read to a certain extent to be able to engage with that.
DEREK SMITH:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Dr. Allison Prahl, Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Baylor. Dr. Prahl, you described these barriers. Certainly the disorders or disabilities make it harder for them to learn. You talked about, in a lot of cases, whether societally we don't think they can learn or maybe they're not taught in a certain way. You've got this big challenge. Where are some of the places that you personally start to chip away at that barrier, places that you think can have a greater impact than when you start there?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. There's a lot of momentum across a lot of disciplines, including speech language pathology right now, to engage in what's called implementation science. Which basically has the goal of, instead of researchers just coming up with our own ideas and it not really getting into the hands of the people like teachers, like parents, like families. To just take more of a collaborative approach to think first about what would this realistically look like to happen in schools for teachers to implement? Just as one example, and I still have a lot to learn when it comes to true implementation science. But basically my hope is that I'm not the one coming up with the research questions and driving that horse in that instead. It's evolving out of conversations with families, with teachers, with speech language pathologists to identify what are the needs that they're encountering day in and day out? What is the lived experience of individuals with IDD? What are the ways then, I can harness my expertise and try to systematically evaluate these different problems or possible solutions that we brainstorm? Again, with the big picture of hopefully improving their outcomes overall.
DEREK SMITH:
You mentioned talking to families, talking to teachers. I know you direct the LIDS Lab at Baylor. Do some of these conversations take place there?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. Yeah. The LIDS lab, it stands for a Language Impairment And Down Syndrome Lab. Yeah, it's essentially our research team. That's one way that we connect with families and other people in the community. As a shout-out, we're starting to build our social media presence. We have an Instagram, which the handle's @lidslab_csd or you can google it and find our website, and there's a form there where people can connect with us.
DEREK SMITH:
@lidslab_csd on social media, and you can google Baylor LIDS Lab and find it there. Well, Dr. Prahl, some of this leads into a research project you've been working on that might give us a practical look at the way you go about working and serving those with IDD. You recently earned an NIH Early-Career Award looking at the role of technology in functional literacy, so I'll use that as a starting point. Could you take us inside this? Just what led you down this path initially and where some of the places that's taken you?
ALISON PRAHL:
Right. Again, it goes back to conversations with families. The idea for the NIH-funded project grew out of when I was collecting data for my dissertation and was just talking with parents. I was interacting a lot with young adults with IDD, and the focus of my dissertation was on reading. I was reviewing standardized-test results with the parent of what I would say is a pretty strong, young adult with IDD who was a really great reader. The reality is standardized tests are also biased for a lot of the reasons I mentioned previously. And so the scores were somewhat discouraging. As I was debriefing and talking with this parent, I just came to realize a standardized test, it is standardized. It is designed for a very narrow ,specific purpose. I told the mom, I said, "I love to read, but it's been years since someone has handed me a passage, asked me to read it and answer comprehension questions about that." Again, that's this very narrow focus. Here's how I read every day. I was reading your text message, your response to say that you guys were home and available for me to come by. I'm reading my emails to stay on top of my schoolwork. I'm reading in a Bible study I'm participating. I'm reading books because that's something I enjoy doing at the end of the day. That's where I started thinking more about what we refer to as functional literacy. And so it is a different approach than this, again, more narrow focus that you might typically think of within an academic context. As I was thinking more about functional literacy, what does it look like for young adults with IDD to read and navigate their day, day in and day out? It was around the time then I was starting at Baylor, which coincided with Covid. And so I got here and understandably, it was just difficult to get plugged in with the schools in the area. But ultimately ended up, I think it was divine intervention, got connected with Texas A&M actually has an inclusive college program and my collaborator there. We just continued this conversation about functional literacy and she was super excited about it. We just dove right in and started collecting some pilot data with their students with IDD. From there, I've had a lot of great mentorship along the way. Everyone I've interacted with, whether in the pilot study or mentors, have helped shape and improve the study in its current form, which is funded by the NIH grant. Sometimes I still am shocked. I'm obviously thrilled that the project was funded. I think it's really encouraging to know that others recognize the importance of this work and see the need for it.
DEREK SMITH:
As you really dive into this, what are some of the questions you're hoping to answer? What are some of the practical outcomes you'd like to see as you get further into it?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. In the study, we are teaching the young adults with an IDD, reading comprehension strategies but it's all within the context of, "Hey, here's a text-message exchange. Let's read through it. We're going to teach you some evidence-based strategies, and hopefully that will improve your comprehension." So that they meet a new friend and hopefully they can engage in these day-to-day interactions that involve reading more fluidly. In the context of the study, we are measuring reading outcomes that are very closely aligned with the intervention, and so they're related to those reading-comprehension strategies that we're teaching them. Big picture, hopefully we'll continue to get grant funding to expand this work. Because we would love to see other outcomes in terms of did this really have an impact on employment opportunities or their quality of life and other broader outcomes such as those?
DEREK SMITH:
Well, Dr. Prahl, we'll look forward to the results and the fruits of that in the years ahead as you continue that study. As we wind down here on the program, I just want to ask you a broad question to close. For families, for people who have a loved one with IDD, are there any tips you have? Just any basic tips to help them as they look to improve their literacy at any point in their life or just any directions you might point them?
ALISON PRAHL:
Yeah. I think, again, just knowing that there's so many misconceptions. I think advocacy, I would just really empower family members to advocate for lifelong language and literacy learning. And just recognizing and educating others about the reality that everyone can learn how to read. It's never too late. If families have someone like a school-age friend or a relative with a disability, I think oftentimes just finding at least one partner or one champion within the schools. So that you guys can work together just to support each other in those advocacy efforts definitely can have a huge impact. My hope would be slowly by just spreading the information, by advocating, sharing stories, that hopefully the narrative can change over time and we can get rid of this idea of literate invisibility.
DEREK SMITH:
Well, that's wonderful. Dr. Prahl, I really appreciate your time. Again, the Lids Lab at Baylor, people can google that or find you on social media at @lidslab_csd. I appreciate the work you're doing and really appreciate you taking the time to share with us. Thanks so much for coming on today.
ALISON PRAHL:
Thanks for having me.
DEREK SMITH:
Dr. Allison Prahl, assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder, you can hear this in other programs online at baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.