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 25 years. Prior to that, she was employed as a school speech-language pathologist. Areas of interest include language disorders and literacy development of students having hearing loss and issues related to the inclusion of these students in regular classrooms. She is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist (LSLS) and certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist who has co-authored over 25 journal articles and written numerous book chapters. Dr. Wray is director of the early intervention 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 and literacy development of children with cochlear implants in the mainstream setting.

She was formerly a Co-Director of a grant that collaborated with the Ohio Department of Health to provide early intervention services for children, birth-three with hearing loss. Currently she is the Co-Director of a U.S. Department of Education personnel preparation grant that trains SLPs from the University of Akron and Kent State University to develop a specialty in working with children who have hearing loss.

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 has been in operation for over two decades. Introduced by Professor of Audiology Dr. Carol Flexer, the clinic has two Listening and Spoken Language Specialists who supervise approximately twenty clients per semester. 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 language for students with all degrees of hearing impairment.

Click Here: Auditory-Verbal Webpage