Denise Wray

Denise Wray received her M.A. in speech-language pathology and her Ph.D. in elementary education from the University of Akron. She is a Professor of Speech-Language Pathology and has taught at the University of Akron for over 26 years. Prior to that, she was employed as a school speech-language pathologist. Areas of interest include language disorders of students having hearing loss and issues related to the inclusion of these students in regular classrooms. She is a certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist, has co-authored over 26 journal articles, and co-edited two editions of a book with audiologists Dr. Carol Flexer and Ron Leavitt entitled, How the Student with Hearing Loss Can Succeed in College published by the Alexander Graham Bell Association. Dr. Wray is director of the Auditory-Verbal Clinic at the Audiology and Speech Center and co-supervised children with hearing impairment with Dr. Carol Flexer before her retirement in 2006. Current research interests include the speech-language development and classroom performance of children with cochlear implants in the mainstream setting.

AUDITORY-VERBAL CLINIC: The University of Akron’s Auditory-Verbal Clinic is one of several university-based auditory-verbal clinics in the country. The clinic will celebrate its twentieth year of operation in 2001. Introduced by Professor of Audiology Dr. Carol Flexer, the clinic has two certified auditory-verbal therapists who supervise approximately twenty clients per semester and a third supervisor who is currently completing the professional experience required for certification. The University of Akron graduate students in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology have the unique clinical experience of working with clients who use conventional hearing aids and cochlear implants and most are able to complete at least one clinical rotation in the auditory-verbal program. A distinctive quality of this practicum experience is that approximately two-thirds of the auditory-verbal clientele wear cochlear implants. Through clinical opportunities in the auditory-verbal philosophy, our graduates learn how to maximize residual hearing by accessing audition through technology to develop spoken communication skills for students with all degrees of hearing impairment.

Click Here: Auditory-Verbal Webpage