Some attendees at Temple's first Aphasia Awareness Fair in October wore t-shirts that said "Aphasia: Get the Word Out." The slogan has a double meaning.   At the daylong conference, people with aphasia, caregivers and clinicians discussed the need for better public understanding of aphasia, which sometimes is misdiagnosed and can be misunderstood in social situations. There are at least 2 million people in the U.S. with aphasia, but 84.5 % of people have never heard of it, according to a national survey. Aphasia, most often caused by a stroke, can impair a person’s ability...

Children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) can face extraordinary challenges, and poor early diagnosis and inappropriate treatment with medication is a growing problem, writes Yaara Zisman-Ilani, assistant professor of Social and Behavioral Science, in a recent issue of Psychiatric Services.   “This is an urgent wake-up call,” she writes in the “Taking Issue” essay. Factors including poorly trained caregivers, economic disparities and bias, and the reduction of in-person social interactions due to COVID-19 pandemic may lead to an unprecedented wa...

Public health crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic to future challenges, call for an interdisciplinary, unified response, and we look to our future public health, healthcare and social service workers to answer this call. Within this year's Temple Public Health magazine, you will find numerous examples of just that—beginning with the story of our vaccine delivery protocol, RapidVax, and how the college partnered with communities across Philadelphia to help the city reach an all-important vaccination threshold. You'll also read stories of impact beyond the pandemic, including th...

Before arriving at Temple’s College of Public Health to earn her doctoral degree, Maura O’Fallon worked as a speech-language pathologist in a school for children with behavioral issues. Now, the second-year doctoral student has received federal funding to explore connections between child behavior and language learning. O’Fallon has been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship, or F31 grant, from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.  Designed to strengthen research skills in predocto...