Morgan Poole Evatt of the University of Central Arkansas has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Mexico in speech-language pathology, the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently.
Evatt is one of over 1,700 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2011-2012 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She will conduct data collection for validity, sensitivity and specificity of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI-III), a language assessment tool, for Spanish speakers ages 30-47 months. Poole will travel to Queretaro, Mexico in August to begin the nine-month project.
Hear more about Morgan Evatt’s upcoming trip to Mexico at UCA’s YouTube page.
“This experience in Mexico will allow me to be immersed in the language and the culture while learning about how speech pathology works in Mexico from the client, family, and clinical perspectives,” Evatt said. “My time there will improve my mastery of the Spanish language and make me a more culturally sensitive clinician.”
Evatt, of Vilonia, said she hopes to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to provide speech-language pathology services to bilingual children in Arkansas and across the U.S.
“I want to advocate for the needs of Mexican children with communication disorders in Mexico and at home because everyone has the right to communicate,” she said. “…The Hispanic population is rapidly rising in the United States, increasing the number of monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speaking children who need speech-language services. I see gaps in the quality of clinical services being provided to these youngsters and a lack of research in this area. We need better tools to assess the language of Spanish-speaking children in the U.S. and abroad, and I believe I can help develop these tools. I believe I have received excellent training in the area of communication sciences and disorders and it is my professional responsibility to promote the advancement of my field on a state, national, and global level. My husband and I are excited to move to Mexico and to immerse ourselves in the language and culture.”
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.
Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Fulbright recipients are among over 40,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than sixty years, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has funded and supported programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is administered by the Institute of International Education.
For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visit http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange Programs, telephone 202-632-3241 or e-mail fulbright@state.gov.
