October 24, 2022 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
The Montgomery Speech, Language, and Hearing Clinic has been honored with two “best of” awards in the 2022 edition of The State’s Best. This magazine, published by The State newspaper, showcases the businesses, people and places voted as the best in South Carolina by community residents.
This year, 1,700 businesses, organizations and individuals competed to claim a top-three spot in one more of 224 categories. The Clinic, which is housed in the Arnold School’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (COMD) won “best of” ratings in two categories: Speech Therapy and Audiology/Hearing Center.
“These recent awards are just further evidence that the Montgomery Clinic is making a great impact on our community,” says Thomas Chandler, Dean of the Arnold School. “We are so thankful for all that the COMD faculty and staff do at the Clinic.”
Thousands of lives are touched by the superior and clinically varied experiences our students receive, and our excellent clinicians and state-of the-art clinic space make it all possible.
-Jean Neils-Strunjas, chair for the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Established in 1969, the Montgomery Speech, Language, and Hearing Clinic (known as the USC Speech and Hearing Research Center until 2019) provides quality diagnostic and treatment programs for individuals of all ages with communication disabilities. The Clinic works to meet the needs of a diverse community while preparing master’s students for careers as speech-language pathologists.
The Clinic’s speech therapy services include language, literacy, aphasia, articulation, childhood apraxia of speech, stuttering, voice and others. Audiology/Hearing offerings include the cochlear implant program, hearing aids (both adult and pediatric), newborn hearing follow-up services and more.
Faculty, staff and students at the Montgomery Clinic log 6,000 patient visits and approximately 225 outreach hours each year. Housing one of only two Cochlear Implant/Auditory-Verbal Programs in the state, the Clinic has given the gift of sound to more than 600 hearing-impaired individuals.
“These awards are a testament to our dedicated clinical faculty who use the highest quality evidence to treat their patients, focusing on the functional needs of them and their families,” says director Danielle Varnedoe.
These recent awards are just further evidence that the Montgomery Clinic is making a great impact on our community. We are so thankful for all that the COMD faculty and staff do at the Clinic.
-Thomas Chandler, Dean of the Arnold School of Public Health
Students and clients both benefit from the research conducted by world-class faculty, who are examining areas such as speech production/perception, communication function following stroke, hearing, fragile X syndrome and language/literacy development and disorders. Clients both inform (often by participating in studies) this research and benefit from the latest findings.
“An integral component of graduate student education is supervised clinical practice,” says Jean Neils-Strunjas, chair of COMD. “Upon graduation, our students take positions as speech-language pathology fellows in the state and across the nation. Thousands of lives are touched by the superior and clinically varied experiences our students receive, and our excellent clinicians and state-of the-art clinic space make it all possible.”