PhD '18 Alumni

What year did you start the program? 2013

Crystle has accepted a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT. She will be the project director on one of the largest longitudinal studies funded by the NIH on children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Dyslexia, under the mentorship of Julie Wolter, PhD, CCC-SLP, a co-investigaor with Tiffany Hogan, PhD, CCC-SLP at the MGH Institute, Suzanne Adlof, PhD, at the University of South Carolina, and Jessie Ricketts, BSc, MSc, DPhil, at the Royal Holloway, University of London.

What are your prior degrees and at which institutions?
BS, Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, 2007
MS, Clinical Speech Pathology, Northern Arizona University, 2010

What was your research setting during the PhD program?
Mentor: Tiffany Hogan, PhD, CCC-SLP, Director
Lab: Speech, Language and Literacy (SAiL) Lab, MGH Institute of Health Professions

What was your dissertation title?
"Prediction of Literacy Difficulties in Young Children with Developmental Language Disorders"

On what was your research focused?
My primary interest is in early childhood language development, specifically prevention of, identification of, and intervention for children at risk for delays and disabilities in cognition, language and literacy.

My research was focused on determining if a language-based classroom curriculum – Let’s Know – significantly improves story retell abilities of preschoolers during the first year of a 2-year, multi-state, randomized control trial, run by the Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC) through the Speech and Language (SAiL) Literacy lab.

We also characterized the story retell abilities of a large sample of preschool children over the course of one academic year, and examined the relations between story retell abilities and child, home, and school outcomes.  Our findings may provide a way for teachers and parents to improve their children’s story abilities to then improve reading comprehension.

What publications or external presentations have you produced since you began the program?

Alonzo, C.N., & Hogan, T.P. (2018). Knowledge processing and inhibition in preschool children with and without language impairment. Manuscript in preparation. 

Alonzo, C.N., McIlraith, A. L., Hogan, T.P., & Catts, H.W. (2018). Letter knowledge is a more accurate predictor than phonological awareness of poor word reading and dyslexia in children with developmental language disorder. Manuscript under review.

Alonzo CN & Hogan TP: "Improve Your Background Knowledge on the Interactions of Background Knowledge & Comprehension in Young Children."

Hendricks, A. E., Adlof, S.M., Alonzo, C.N., Fox, A., & Hogan, T.P. (2018). Identifying children with developmental language disorder with a brief, whole-classroom screen. Manuscript under review.

Schliep, M. E., Alonzo, C. N., & Morris, M. A. (2017). Beyond RCTs: Innovations in research design and methods to advance implementation science. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 1-17.

Alonzo, C.N., Yeomans-Maldonado, G., Murphy, K., Bevens, B., & the Language and Reading Research Consortium (2016). Predicting second grade listening comprehension using pre-kindergarten measures. Topics in Language Disorders, 36(4), 312-333.

Hogan, T.P., Adlof, S.M., & Alonzo, C.N. (2014). On the importance of listening comprehension. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16, 199-207

Alonzo, C.N., Thornhill, L. & Hogan, T.P. (November, 2018). Knowledge processing and inhibition effects on comprehension in preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, Boston, MA.

Alonzo, C.N., Yeomans-Maldonado, G., Murphy, K., Bevens, B., & the Language and Reading Research Consortium (October, 2018). Predicting second grade listening comprehension using pre-kindergarten measures. Montana Speech-Language-Hearing Association Fall Convention, Helena, MT. 

Alonzo, C.N. & Hogan, T.P. (2017, November). Improve your background knowledge on the interactions of background knowledge & comprehension in young children. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, Los Angeles, CA.

Alonzo, C.N., Hogan, T.P., Yeomans-Maldonado, G., Murphy, K., & the Language and Reading Research Consortium (2016, July). Predicting second grade listening comprehension using prekindergarten & kindergarten measures. Society for the Scientific Study of Reading 23rd Annual Meeting, Porto, Portugal

Alonzo, C.N., Hogan, T.P., Yeomans-Maldonado, G., Murphy, K., Bevens, B., Sheranian, K., & the Language and Reading Research Consortium (2015, November). Predicting second grade listening comprehension using preschool measures. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, Denver, CO. 

Alonzo, C.N., Davis, D., Guarino, A., Farquharson, K., Hogan, T.P., & the Language and Reading Research Consortium (2014, November). Classroom language-based intervention effects narrative retell of preschool children. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, Orlando, FL.

Alonzo, C.N., Granger, L., & Tompkins, L. (2012, April). Institute for Human Development and Growing in Beauty, Team‐Based early intervention on the Navajo Nation. Arizona Speech-Language-Hearing Association Annual Convention, Phoenix, AZ.

Alavez, C.N., Bistline, S., Clark, G., Davis, S., Hiebert, L., Lindstedt, E., Murphy M., Anderson, S., & King, J. (2009, November). Inference and word‐mapping strategy use by diverse students. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA.

Alavez, C.N., Calvert, E., Foster, L., Heibert, L., Helvig, R., Savage, K., Sedlock, N., King, J., Lindstedt, E., & Towle‐Harmon, M. (2009, November). Increasing graduate students’ counseling competencies with early intervention families. American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA

What do you think is special about the PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program here at the MGH Institute?

The PhD program in Rehabilitation Sciences at the Institute is unique in its interdisciplinary nature and the connections it has with a diverse network of health and education institutions in the greater Boston area. We are provided with a rare opportunity to interact with, learn from, and collaborate with clinical researchers from a multitude of fields and generations.

Why did you choose to come to this program rather than a doctoral research program in your specific profession?
The program at the Institute is a great fit for my professional interests and goals to be a clinical researcher.  I have wonderful opportunities to meet and learn from researchers and clinicians from various disciplines at the Institute and this will inform my future practice as a researcher. The Institute will help me attain my professional goals because it employs faculty like Dr. Tiffany Hogan. Her expertise and experience as a speech-language pathologist, a researcher, and professor speak volumes to the types and quality of research and labs housed at the Institute.

What are your goals for the future after you graduate?
I hope to secure a faculty position at a higher education institution and obtain external and independent funding to continue my research in early childhood language development. I am particularly interested in looking at the impact of exposure and experiences during the early years of development and how this can help inform and direct clinical practice and policy in the areas of language and literacy.

I aspire to do the same as Dr. Tiffany Hogan and others in our field, to in some way, add to the knowledge base of the profession as a researcher and to hopefully see this work reflected in my students as a professor.