{"id":217663,"date":"2022-03-23T12:12:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=217663"},"modified":"2022-03-23T12:12:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:12:44","slug":"life-and-studies-coalesce-for-montclair-senior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2022\/03\/23\/life-and-studies-coalesce-for-montclair-senior\/","title":{"rendered":"Life and Studies Coalesce for Montclair Senior"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the beginning of one of her favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers songs that led to Montclair State University senior Evyn Stewart\u2019s hearing test and unilateral hearing loss diagnosis at a young age. <\/p>\n

Stewart, who was 8 or 9 at the time, says much of the diagnosis went over her head but she recalls what led up to it: She was listening to \u201cSlow Cheetah\u201d in the car when her father cranked up the volume. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t know that the lead singer had said a little blurb in the beginning of the song, and I was like, \u2018Oh, that’s so strange,\u2019 \u2019\u2019 she says. <\/p>\n

A hearing test revealed hearing loss in her left ear. \u201cAfter that hearing test, it made perfect sense why I would be missing that part of the song at a certain volume because I was missing the low end and the high end of a certain frequencies on the audiogram.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

That song, diagnosis and decades of visits to an ear, nose and throat doctor and audiologist led Stewart to an independent study in Montclair\u2019s Communication Sciences and Disorders department this semester \u2013 as an undergraduate in a graduate-level lab.<\/p>\n

A Linguistics major in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Stewart is working in Montclair\u2019s Communication Sciences and Disorders Clinical Biofeedback Lab, also known as MSU-CBL, studying adolescents with unilateral hearing loss, and will present her research findings at the New Jersey Speech, Language and Hearing Association\u2019s Annual Convention in April. <\/p>\n

The 21-year-old has tackled the study with the same grit and grace \u2013 and a good dose of humor \u2013 with which she handles her hearing loss. Stewart has seen her pediatric ENT since she was 2. She suffered from ear infections and had to have tubes put in her ears as a toddler through fourth grade. She did without them for a short period but an ear infection led to a perforated eardrum in her left ear. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the first of four perforations, and so I currently have a tube in my ear. I get it replaced every four years or so,\u201d she says, joking that she\u2019s going to have to find a \u201cbig girl ENT\u201d soon. The tube, she explains, \u201cstabilizes my eardrum and equalizes the pressure. There’s a bunch of scarring in my ear and on my Eustachian tube, and that’s what led to my unilateral conductive hearing loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Evyn
Senior Evyn Stewart (No. 11) has played on the Montclair field hockey team for four years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stewart also has been playing field hockey since she could hold a stick and has been a member of Montclair\u2019s field hockey team for four years. Her hearing loss, she says, has been her biggest challenge on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely I feel the impact in sports. I have a hard time telling directional sound. If I have a teammate on my left side, then I definitely have a harder time knowing if they’re calling for the ball but the other thing is, we’re not out on the field whispering, right?\u201d she laughs. \u201cThey\u2019re [also] going to say my name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indoor high school tournaments where fields were side by side were \u201cdoubly hard,\u201d she says. She could not tell if a whistle was blown by a referee on her field or nearby. At the advice of a mom who recognized her confusion because her daughter also had hearing loss, Stewart bought some whistles that sound like train whistles. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would give those to the refs if I knew that we were going to be in a complex with multiple fields next to each other, and so that was helpful,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

In some ways, Stewart thinks she\u2019s developed other skills to compensate and learned to adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have definitely done different things and just became accustomed to different methods,\u201d she explains. \u201cSo, my game sense is huge for me, just knowing, predicting where the ball would end up and what play would happen versus where it is, that’s how, directionally, I would get myself situated. And I definitely don’t think I would have that aspect if I didn’t become so dependent on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Evyn
Evyn Stewart has been playing field hockey since she was old enough to hold a stick. Following their mom\u2019s lead, Evyn and her sister also play college-level hockey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Independent study<\/h2>\n

Stewart was on track to become a speech pathologist, however a summer course in audiology, volunteering in the lab and her independent study changed her career trajectory. The way she sees it, her hearing loss has immersed her in the field of audiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could say I\u2019ve been taking hearing classes for 21 years,\u201d she says, smiling, \u201cbut it never really hit me as a profession until that class. And then I had an ENT appointment that summer, and I talked to my audiologist who has been doing my hearing tests since I was pretty young. My favorite part of going to the ENT was the hearing test because they’re not poking and prodding in your ear. I looked into it more and shadowed my audiologist, and then volunteering in the biofeedback lab, too. All of that is why I wanted to go into audiology.\u201d <\/p>\n

University faculty and staff helped Stewart achieve her goal of an independent study, a hurdle that required lots of research, work and persistence to gain registrar approval since she was an undergrad and not a graduate student. Adjunct Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Laura Ochs recommended the volunteer opportunity and Stewart worked closely with and assisted Michelle Turner, a speech-language pathology (SLP) doctoral student with whom she was paired, with research prior to her independent study.<\/p>\n

Speech-language pathologist and Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Elaine Hitchcock last year received a National Institutes of Health grant<\/a> to research the telepractice delivery of speech and currently leads the research and clinical opportunities in the Clinical Biofeedback Lab. Hitchcock, who supervises Stewart\u2019s research study, says that Stewart showed enthusiasm and commitment from the beginning and has demonstrated maturity and independence unexpected in someone so young. Stewart, who has worked as a restaurant hostess and a kayak\/paddleboard tour guide in Ocean City for the past three summers trekked to the MSU-CBL for her volunteer service.<\/p>\n

\"Evyn
Evyn Stewart consults with Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Elaine Hitchcock in the biofeedback lab, where the Montclair senior is conducting her independent study.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHow many students, not graduate students, undergraduate students would drive two and a half hours to be a volunteer?\u201d Hitchcock says of Stewart\u2019s weekly trips to the biofeedback lab over the summer. \u201cWhat we identified pretty quickly was that Stewart was a highly skilled student. For an independent study, you have to want to work with them as the professor. They have to be somebody that you feel like you can trust, that you’re not chasing down and that will do quality work. That’s the kind of student you really want to support. Evyn is still an undergraduate \u2013 and a varsity athlete \u2013 and is doing an amazing job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her graduate-level study, Stewart is researching the very thing with which she was diagnosed: unilateral hearing loss in adolescents; she\u2019s comparing how their speech perception compares to their \u201ctypical hearing peers.\u201d Under Hitchcock\u2019s guidance, she is working with research participants on various tasks in order to record how they say, produce and repeat sounds or words, which will be contrasted with people who have no hearing impairments.<\/p>\n

Montclair senior Evyn Stewart, left, works with grad student Ashley Martino, a research participant in Stewart\u2019s independent study.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, she was working with another Montclair student, Ashley Martino, officially known as \u201cParticipant 05\u201d in the study. Martino, 22, has some hearing loss in her left ear due to a cholesteatoma, a cyst or skin growth behind the eardrum. A graduate student in Speech-Language Pathology, Martino was recruited as a research participant by another professor who was aware of her hearing loss. She says she has a hearing aid she does not wear. \u201cMy whole life, I\u2019ve learned to adapt,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Stewart handed her headphones and ran her through a series of tests. In one test, Stewart has her repeat a list of \u201ccrazy made-up words,\u201d beginning with single syllables, followed by double and triple and finally quadrisyllabic words, which Stewart records. The goal, she says, is to compare Martino\u2019s and other research subjects\u2019 perception of the words they hear with their pronunciation of them and see how they may differ.<\/p>\n

While she\u2019s still gathering and analyzing data, Stewart says that someone with unilateral hearing loss may have difficulty deciphering between \u2018b\u2019 and \u2018p\u2019 sounds, something with which she also struggles. \u201cSo, when I ask them to say \u2018bo-ta-go\u2019 or whatever the made-up word is, they might say \u2018po-ta-go\u2019 because they didn’t hear the \u2018b\u2019 sound from the initial output,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The research is important because while there has been research on bilateral hearing loss among students, there has not been much on the impact of unilateral hearing loss in young adults, says Hitchcock. \u201cLet\u2019s see if there’s anything uniquely different in our findings that may inform the research in one direction or the other,\u201d she says, adding that it\u2019s still preliminary.<\/p>\n

\"Evyn
Montclair senior Evyn Stewart records study participant Ashley Martino in Montclair\u2019s Communication Sciences and Disorders Clinical Biofeedback Lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grad school bound<\/h2>\n

Stewart has applied to a dozen audiology schools across the country and has been accepted to most, including Montclair. She has until April 15 to decide which she\u2019ll attend. When she does, she will have three graduate level credits under her belt, says Hitchcock, who is happy for her even though she chose audiology over SLP. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about me,\u201d Hitchcock says. \u201cMy job is to give them opportunities. It\u2019s her life, she should do what she wants. She was still here with me for a whole semester and then some, learning, growing and finding her path in life \u2013 it’s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the first people with whom Stewart shared her decision to pursue audiology? Her audiologist of many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really excited,\u201d Stewart says smiling.<\/p>\n

For more information on Audiology or Speech-Language Pathology, visit Communication Sciences and Disorders<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Story by Staff Writer Sylvia A. Martinez<\/a>, Photos by University Photographer Mike Peters<\/a>.<\/p>\n