Professor Game-boy with Dr. Erik X. Raj (LIVE #26)
Conversation with Erik X. Raj
Scroll down for host and guest bio, additional resources, links, notes and more.
TOPICS INCLUDE
- Early influences and career path
- Most memorable experiences
- Research, rock-and-roll and rolling-out apps
- The role of tech, apps, creativity in practice
- What are the benefits of "formal" (clinic) and "informal" (camp) settings
- Keeping it real, and using tech in practice/life
- What we miss most, and how we thrive in pandemic times
- Vision for the future
GUEST BIO
Dr. Erik X. Raj holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is a practicing speech-language pathologist who works with school-age children and adolescents with various communication difficulties. He is currently an assistant professor and clinical supervisor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, and is also a facilitator at Camp Shout Out, a Michigan-based sleep away summer camp for young people who stutter.
Dr. Raj regularly presents interactive workshops demonstrating how speech-language pathologists can use mobile and Internet-based technologies to educate and motivate school-age children and adolescents. In addition to developing over 25 mobile apps for children with communication difficulties, he is the creator of Your Face Learning, an educational app for the iPhone and iPad that was named Creative Child Magazine’s 2019 Children’s App of the Year. Dr. Raj has obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Stockton University in New Jersey, and a Master of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Misericordia University in Pennsylvania. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
Resources and Links
Oh the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss
Transcending Stuttering Academy and Self-Guided Online Video Course
TRANSCRIPTION
08:18US: How did you come to the field? How did you find stuttering as a particular interest?
08:48ER: So I guess if I really think hard about who I am, I would consider myself to be an artist, a creator, but I think most importantly, I consider myself a listener. And I think I have a great ability to hear the words and the songs and the sounds around me. And when I hear those words in the songs, in the sounds, I can catch the rhythm and that's the rhythm that makes me pumped to be alive. And that's the rhythm that makes me pumped to connect with others because when we connect with others, in my opinion, we're really sharing our own stories. We're sharing our own songs and we're making new music. I think those instances of my deep DNA allow me to be a speech-language pathologist because that's what we're doing. We're connecting with people in an attempt to know who they are and to walk with them as they grow and evolve as communicators…(10:05) My brother was really one of the first people to tell me. I think you'd be a good speech-language pathologist. So it was a combination of that wonderful guidance from someone trusted, paired with a lot of miscellaneous life experiences.
19:30US: In what ways deliberately or in hindsight, have you integrated as opposed to shutting down, certain parts, certain interests, certain passions. How have you brought that together as a professor?
19:52ER: I think what I really appreciate is getting a chance to know all of my students and my clients. From a practicing clinician point of view, I work together with these fourth graders, fifth graders, sixth graders, and I get to know really what makes them tick, who are they? And a funny thing is when you work together with so many wonderful children, you start to see little bits of yourself in them. So anytime that a child shares with me that, “ you know what, I love music, I'm in the band, I play the clarinet.” I would bust out a guitar and ask the child to bring the clarinet to speech and we would try to infuse that. To answer your question, how does that kind of come to be? I thank the professionals around me that allowed that to happen. I remember my clinical fellowship supervisor encouraging me and telling me to connect with the child.
36:32US: what about technology and interactive technology---things like video games? Can you tell us a little bit about it? Where you've been evolving from the first apps that you put out? What you're really excited about having put out and now the newest video games?
36:50ER: So I started creating a bunch of apps in the early 2010s. And I think those beginning apps were very one-sided. And when I say one-sided, it was you're pressing something and you're getting some auditory feedback and that's fine. But really as I've evolved as a clinician, human, and as a consumer of digital experiences, I value the true interactive nature of doing something, and then it triggers, something else and then you’re doing something different, and then that triggers something else.
(38:37) And as a clinician, I see so much benefit in video games because you can make so many great parallels to the work that they're doing as a communicator to the work that they're doing with the actual character in the video game. I will say this, there are three main components to a video game. There is a character, the environment, and the objective. So that makes sense with the world of therapy. Because there's a character, who's our clients living within an environment and there's a certain objective that they're attempting to grow into or evolve towards.
58:34US: how can people reach you?
58:40ER: erikxraj.com
HOST BIO
Uri Schneider, M.A. CCC -SLP passionately explores and develops practical ways for us to create our own success story. Delivering personalized experiences of communication care informed by leading professionals and influencers, Uri is re-imagining the next-level of speech-language therapy for people to benefit in real life.
Uri Schneider, M.A. CCC -SLP is co-founder and leader at Schneider Speech Pathology and faculty at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine.