Kristi Hendrickson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Meet the Researcher

Hendrickson received her doctorate in language and communicative disorders from San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Iowa. She is an assistant professor in the department of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Iowa, where she directs the Psycholinguistics Lab. Her 2019 Emerging Research Grant is generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance.

Children with hearing loss tend to know fewer word meanings than their typical hearing peers. Inconsistent access to speech can affect their ability to recognize the words they hear and associate those words with meaning. This gap in vocabulary skills is crucial because vocabulary
is one of the strongest predictors of academic achievement. Semantic memory structure (i.e., how the brain groups concepts with common properties) influences vocabulary knowledge and may be amenable to change through intervention, which may boost language outcomes in children who are hard of hearing.

As a speech-language pathologist, I worked with several pediatric populations with hearing loss. At an elementary school I was mentored by an extraordinary speech-language pathologist. Every day I was able to directly impact the lives of children, and these interactions significantly affected my research focus.

Currently my research is basic science, how the developing brain processes spoken words. However, my background as a speech-language pathologist is always pushing me in a more applied direction. I hope eventually to be able to advocate for children who are hard of hearing
by helping to shape policy decisions.

People are often surprised to find out that I am a first-generation college student. Transitioning from high school to college was a challenge because I had no idea what to expect. A barrier to success for first-generation college students is having access to family who have successfully navigated college before them. For instance, it was not until the end of my senior year that I realized I could be directly involved in research. Now I try to recruit and mentor research assistants who are also among the first in their families to attend college.

The most memorable moment of my career was submitting my first manuscript with data collected from my lab. It is a daunting task to set up and staff a lab in your first year as an assistant professor, and for me, submitting this first manuscript was when all of that hard work came to fruition. A very wise colleague once told me that it is important to celebrate manuscript submissions (as opposed to manuscript acceptance) because that’s the aspect of the process you can control!

Kristi Hendrickson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a Royal Arch Research Assistance award recipient. Hearing Health Foundation thanks the Royal Arch Masons for their ongoing commitment to research in the area of central auditory processing disorder.

Click to download a PDF of Dr. Hendrickson’s Meet the Researcher profile.

The Research

University of Iowa
Neural correlates of semantic structure in children who are hard of hearing

Mild to severe hearing loss places children at risk for delays in language development. One aspect of language that is affected is vocabulary development; children who are hard of hearing tend to know less about word meanings than their typical hearing peers. This gap in vocabulary skills is crucial because vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of academic achievement. Therefore, it is essential to examine factors that are both: 1) amenable to change through intervention, and 2) influence vocabulary knowledge, in order to help close the vocabulary gap. One such factor is semantic memory structure (i.e., how the brain groups concepts with common properties). In essence, semantic structure determines how individuals understand and interact with the social and physical world. Yet, very little is known about how children with hearing loss structure semantic information in the brain. This project addresses a critical need by characterizing semantic structure in the brains of children who are hard of hearing, and results will inform vocabulary interventions. Given the predictive validity of vocabulary knowledge for academic achievement, improving vocabulary understanding in children with hearing loss has the potential to impact all aspects of language (form, content, and use). 

Long-term goal: To identify key factors that influence language outcomes in children who are hard of hearing.