The Callier Center was the brainchild of Nelle Johnston in the early '60s. She was the first administrative assistant to the founders of Texas Instruments, but her real vocation was looking for ways to help children with communication impairments. As Roeser said, "She proposed a center that would provide clinical, research, and education services. It's a mission we still follow today." Johnston persuaded trustees for the estate of Mrs. Lena Callier to fund the center.
In 1969, the main building was built and, in September 1975, the center joined the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas System. A location just a half mile away from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas allows for easy collaboration. In August 2003, the Callier Center opened a satellite facility on the U.T. Dallas campus in Richardson. Between its two locations, the Callier Center conducts about 80,000 patient visits a year.
Besides its clinical services, Callier has a national reputation as a leader in communication disorder research. "We have a number of researchers doing cutting-edge work," Roeser said. Researchers at Callier are working to uncover the causes of, new treatments for, and ways to prevent hearing and speech impairments.
When asked about her research, associate professor Anu Sharma simply smiled and said, "It's an exciting time." With multiple grants in place to pursue her studies, including two from the National Institutes of Health, who could blame her?
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Callier researcher, Anu Sharma, in her lab holding an "electrode cap" |
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Working with surgeons from UT Southwestern, Sharma is analyzing brainwaves to determine if appropriate brain development is occurring after a child is fitted with an implant. Children in the study wear an "electrode cap" and unsuspectingly enter a cozy room to watch one of their favorite DVDs. In the next room, Dr. Sharma watches computer monitors that show changes in the child's brainwave activity in response to sound. "We are trying to gain the best understanding of how the brain matures and develops, so we can answer questions like: What changes occur in the brain because a child cannot hear? How do cochlear implants overcome hearing problems? When is the best time to implant? How late is too late?," she said. The goal is to develop a clinical tool that will be in every doctor's office in five years. "The test is very easy. It's a snapshot of the brain and only takes 30 minutes to conduct." With records on over 200 children with cochlear implants, she has learned that, "If they have the procedure done by age 3, they will be hearing in the normal range within six months. However, after age 7, there is a lasting deficit."
Similarly, Emily Tobey, professor and the Nelle C. Johnston Chair in Communication Disorders, is working on a study to measure what one ear is doing compared to both ears working together by looking at those who have received single and double cochlear implants. The majority of double implant patients have been adults, but the number of doubles for children is catching up.
Tobey is also working with researchers from five other institutions in a study funded by an NIH grant called Childhood Development after Cochlear Implantation. The researchers are tracking 190 very young cochlear implant children and 90 hearing children over three years to see how their speech and hearing develop.
Because the Callier Center has clinical services on site, researchers see how their work directly benefits those with communication disorders. As Tobey said, "In a lot of science arenas you stay in a very dreary lab for thousands of hours and you never know that it makes a difference. For me, it's really important that we have our lab set up here so we are seeing the children every day. You can make a discovery and be in a team meeting and see it implemented instantly."
While Callier professors are doing important work, students are getting in on the act too. "We have really good doctoral students. At the moment, one of our students has an NIH pre-doctoral award and another received an A.G. Bell Clinical Research Fellowship, as well as an American Speech Hearing Language Foundation award for research. Students are really infused in the research activities that are going on here," Tobey added.
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