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Dr. Victoria Henbest Honored as 2025 "Top Prof"

We are thrilled to celebrate APLL Lab Co-Director Dr. Victoria Henbest for being selected as a "Top Prof" for 2025! This prestigious honor is presented by the Mortar Board Honor Society to faculty members who demonstrate excellence in teaching and a profound impact on their students’ academic journeys.

What makes this award truly special is that the honorees are selected by the students themselves. Dr. Henbest was nominated by Nafia Sarhadi (Biomedical Sciences student and APLL lab member) and Olivia Keller (Speech and Hearing Sciences student) for her exceptional guidance and support.

This recognition is a testament to Dr. Henbest’s dedication to mentorship and her commitment to fostering the next generation of researchers and clinicians. We are incredibly proud to have a leader who is as dedicated to her students as she is to her research.

Congratulations, Dr. Henbest!

ASHA Convention 2025 in Washington, D.C

"Outcomes and Student Perceptions of Including Artificial Intelligence as One Source for a Term Paper"

Congratulations to APLL lab co-director Dr. Brenda Beverly and lab member Gina Mejia on their recent poster presentation at the 2025 ASHA Convention. We are thrilled to see our team’s research being shared with colleagues across the country!

"A Systematic Review of Mandarin-Speaking Children's Early Learning Development"

Congratulations to lab member Dr. Dongyin Mei and lab co-director Dr. Brenda Beverly on their poster presentation at ASHA 2025! Dr. Beverly presented their collaborative work to a national audience, representing the hard work of both authors.

2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium
Congratulations to our undergraduates Nafia Sarhadi and Ally Taranto on their research!

Ally Taranto

Ally presented “Measuring Shared Book Reading Early Literacy Intervention Benefits for Children on the Autism Spectrum,” research conducted with Dr. Brenda Beverly & Dr. Victoria Henbest. Ally’s research comes from the APLL PEEL (Parents Engaging in Early Literacy) Project and focuses on the impact of shared book reading intervention and early literacy gains for children on the autism spectrum.

Nafia Sarhadi

Nafia, mentored by Dr. Brenda Beverly presented “Piloting a Pediatric Screener for Assessing Emerging Literacy with Preschool Children.” Her research falls under the APLL TREE (Tracking Reading Engagement and Emergence) Project, taking The Reading House into communities with a goal to administer the screener to 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool programs with lower socioeconomic resources.

2025 Summer Autism Series Presentation

In July 2025, Dr. Brenda Beverly and Dr. Victoria Henbest presented as part of a Summer Autism Series for Educators in Alabama, titled Scoring Goals with Autistic Children: Decision Making and Successful Implementation.

This presentation focused on the development and implementation of speech, language, and communication goals for children on the autism spectrum in both educational and clinical settings. Attendees explored how to create meaningful, evidence-based goals by understanding individual needs, evaluating social and academic contexts, and integrating neurodiversity-affirming practices. While applicable across the lifespan, the workshop emphasized supporting the spoken and written language skills of preschool and school-age children on the autism spectrum.

Defending Dissertations - Congratulations, Dongyin!

Congratulations to Dongyin Mei who successfully defended her dissertation project, A Systematic Review of Mandarin-Speaking Children's Early Language Development!

Photo highlights from her time in our department include: Dongyin's "All But Dissertation" lab celebration, a shared meal at the Philadelphia ASHA Convention, her presentation at SRCLD, and most recently with her dissertation committee on zoom.

2024 BASHA Presentation

September 13, 2024, Dr. Brenda Beverly and Dr. Victoria Henbest presented at the Bay Area Speech and Hearing Association's fall mini conference. Their presentation applies neurodiversity-affirming constructs to improve assessment and intervention. Included are recent models for understanding language processing and production by autistic persons, including how these constructs support treatment goals. This information applies to all ages, but serving preschool and school-age children with autism is the primary focus of this presentation. The content addresses spoken and written language skills.

Click the link below to access the presentation!

BASHA Presentation_9.13.2024 (2).pdf

Lab Member Nafia Sarhadi Informs Students about APLL PEEL at the Ben May Library

This summer, undergraduate APLL Lab member, Nafia Sarhadi, set up an information display about the current shared book reading research study, APLL Parents Engaging in Early Literacy (PEEL). Nafia has been partnering with our lab to shift our work toward community-based partnerships and develop her Honors Research Thesis.

Lab Member Emma Townsend Presents at 2024 Research Symposium

Emma Townsend recently presented her thesis findings at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders (SRCLD) in Madison, WI. She developed a parent-implemented treatment - APLL Seed - and trained peers in her cohort to coach parents while working toward her degree!

APLL Lab Celebrates Recent Graduates

The APLL Lab is proud to recognize our members who graduated from the University of South Alabama in May: Emma Townsend, M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology, and Julia Bruffey, M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology.

APLL Lab Members Attend 2024 Autism Walk

On April 27th, APLL Lab members, Carson Kuhr and Abby Phillips, participated in the Mobile, AL Autism Walk hosted by Autism Support of Alabama alongside co-director, Victoria Henbest. At our resource table, we had fun interacting with families, engaging in coloring activities, and operating a switch-activated adapter bubble machine!

APLL Lab Celebrates Recent Graduates

The APLL Lab is proud to recognize our members who graduated from the University of South Alabama in December: Yingshan Huang, Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Gina Mejia, B.S. in Education.

Lab Member Emma Townsend's Victory in 3 Minute Thesis Competition

APLL Lab member, Emma Townsend, was one of four University of South Alabama students awarded during the campus-wide Three Minute Thesis competition this past October. She was awarded the $1,000 People's Choice Award after presenting her thesis, Parent Coaching: Educating Students to Create an Effective Early Intervention Team.

Lab members, Gina Mejia and Michele Dacy-Nichols, virtually presented at the 2023 ASHA conference. Check out their posters for more information!

Lynsey Phillips, speech-language pathologist and APLL Lab collaborator, along with one of her friends, Kasey Hodges, who uses AAC to communicate, featured on the local news station in Northwest Arkansas

Check out the news story here: https://www.nwahomepage.com/lifestyle/sponsored-content/how-the-childrens-therapy-t-e-a-m-is-changing-lives/?fbclid=IwAR0sLR2g_1ds2cng6FfsBl10kBsI25rHl5wvl1RuCbWrG0AiNPTqmvMWE8E&mibextid=uc01c0

Sean Stalley's Presentation at LSA

APLL lab member, Sean Stalley, presented his project, “A Tolerance Principle Approach to Artificial Grammar Learning,” at the 97th annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.

Sean received a Graduate Student Activities Enhancement Award for attending the conference.

The Informed SLP!

The Informed SLP is a research database that focuses on assisting SLPs to find research articles in a friendly, realistic, and efficient way!

Dr. Lori Foran, an alumna of the APLL lab has a publication on the Informed SLP and we are so excited to share!

Please check out the Informed SLP website The Informed SLP website as well as Dr. Lori Foran's publication !

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