天美传媒

by Cecil Harris

A bilingual speech-language pathologist who works with English and Spanish speakers, Veronica Jimenez-Harrison is pursuing a doctorate at 天美传媒 through original research into the cognitive differences between African Americans who use colloquial 鈥淏lack English鈥� and those who communicate in Standard English.

鈥淚 want to see how much of a difference there is, or if there鈥檚 an awareness of dialect shifting when the verbs are presented to African Americans both orally and visually,鈥� said Jimenez-Harrison, whose research will be conducted at the at the .

鈥淰eronica鈥檚 work is invaluable,鈥� said , director of the NSLP Lab and a speech-language pathologist and associate professor in the , who will supervise the research. 鈥淭his study models a new approach to studying the unique situation of diglossia in African Americans who are expected to read and write in a language that differs from their native language.鈥� (Diglossia refers to the presence of two varieties of the same language within one community鈥攐ne acquired naturally and used mainly in daily communication, and the other learned in schools and used in formal communication.)

Finding the 10 people for her study should not be difficult, Jimenez-Harrison said.

鈥淚 work in the [Hempstead school district], which is mostly African American; the population for my research is right there,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 also considering having college students be part of the research to look at the different perspectives in African American speakers.鈥�

As part of the study, an electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain, will be used to gather information from each participant. Adelphi鈥檚 paid for Jimenez-Harrison and fellow Ph.D. candidate to receive intensive EEG skills training at , in Eugene, Oregon, this past summer. , also had EEG skills training at Adelphi’s expense before earning his doctoral degree in .

Jimenez-Harrison, who lives in Levittown, New York, earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Pace University and a master鈥檚 degree from LIU Brooklyn. She considers Adelphi the ideal place to pursue her Ph.D.

鈥淎delphi is the only college on Long Island that offers a part-time Ph.D. program in Communication Sciences and Disorders,鈥� she said. 鈥淎s a working Long Island resident, it鈥檚 great having a program of this quality close to home.鈥�