Andrea Salazar is collaborating across Texas Christian University to make an impact
across borders. An international student from Nicaragua and a scholar in the John V. Roach Honors College, Salazar is a senior majoring in speech-language pathology in the Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences and minoring in child development, a cross-discipline minor housed in the College of Science & Engineering. A recipient of an Honors Undergraduate Research Grant, she is exploring effective interventions for bilingual students with learning disabilities.
Salazar has been on this path since high school, when she had the opportunity to volunteer
at an intervention center that helps children with special needs.
“I fell in love right at the moment I went there. I got to know all the kids and their
families,” she said. “There’s a shortage of speech pathologists in Nicaragua; I started
doing research and decided that I wanted to do something that would help alleviate
the shortage.” 
Here at TCU, Salazar had an opportunity to observe graduate-level students who work
with El Campo, a partnership with Fort Worth Independent School District. Through this partnership, students specializing in bilingual speech-language pathology
provide therapy for preschool and school-age children.
“That program is for graduate students because that’s where the bilingual emphasis starts. In undergrad,
we don’t have that,” she said. “Since there’s only a few of us who are bilingual,
I asked my staff for special permission to get a bilingual client this semester. Currently,
I have a 7-year-old client who’s bilingual.”
Ron Pitcock, Wassenich Family Dean of the John V. Roach Honors College, has high hopes
for the grant allowing this kind of work.
“Our hope is that every Honors Undergraduate Research Grant we award allows a student
to grow as a researcher in their discipline by gaining hands-on experience,” he said.
“What Andrea is doing with her HURG in Harris College is remarkable. She is charting
a path for changing the world by doing research that will have an immediate impact
on the lives of bilingual children.”
Salazar’s research focuses on assessing effective strategies, dosage and other factors, while highlighting research
gaps.
“There’s very little research about bilingualism, because there remains a gap in the training of speech-language pathologists to meet
the bilingual needs of the community,” she said. “There’s no specific dosage of how many interventions you have to give
in Spanish or how many have to be in English.”
Salazar aims to enhance intervention strategies for bilingual children with developmental language
disorders. By synthesizing the available research, her hope is that it will provide
evidence-based recommendations for SLPs and improve clinical practices, focusing on
optimizing vocabulary acquisition in both Spanish and English.
Through her research and work at the Miller Hearing & Speech Clinic, Salazar is gaining hands-on experience for her career as an SLP. “I’m gathering data and figuring out what’s missing,” she said. “I provide therapy
alongside my clinical partner, working under a bilingual supervisor and collaborating
with the client’s schoolteacher to ensure the best care.”
Salazar will graduate in May and has been accepted to NYU and the MGH Institute of
Health Professions. Wherever she ends up, her objective is consistent.
“My ultimate goal is to go back to Nicaragua and help make a change there,” she said.
