As a podcast host, husband, and occasional stand-up comedian, Jules Rodriquez uses his voice in many ways. But as a person with ALS, Rodriquez knew intonation was going to be a challenge until he tapped into the use of artificial intelligence.

On this episode of the podcast, a panel of guests—including Rodriquez—discusses how AI and voice-cloning technology are changing the way AAC users communicate. Hear how the technology replicates his voice and accounts for control over prosody and inflection, allowing him to demonstrate his individuality and personality.

Guests share how this technology affects Rodriquez’s life and relationships. Plus, he shares what he wants speech-language pathologists to know about voice cloning.

Learn More:

•              ASHA Voices: What Message-Banking Offers People With ALS

•              ASHA Voices: Why Some Autistic People Choose AAC and Oral Speech

•              From My Perspective/Opinion: Beyond Words: How Code-Switching in AAC Reflects Social and Cultural Nuance

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Support for this episode of ASHA Voices comes from Zanda.

AAC users and their families stand to benefit from preparing for natural disasters—like a hurricane, or the recent fires that spread through parts of Los Angeles.

On the podcast, two SLPs discuss disaster preparedness, specifically what this means for people who use AAC devices and their care partners. They discuss how SLPs can help AAC users be ready to navigate the unexpected.

And hear a personal story from the mother of an AAC user. She has a message to share about her experience preparing for a potential evacuation during the LA fires.

Learn More:

• Resources for Members Affected by the LA Fires—And Other Disasters
• Hurricane Preparedness: Tips for People Who Use Hearing Aids, Assistive Communication Devices
• Helping People With Aphasia Prepare for an Emergency
• USSAAC: Disaster Relief

Life in the intensive care unit can be overwhelming. Patients may be intubated, disoriented, and scared. Families may be looking for answers from any provider who enters the room. For SLPs, the environment is noisy and ever-changing, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

On the podcast, SLPs take us behind the scenes to share stories from the ICU. In a wide-ranging discussion, they tackle the significant role SLPs play in managing dysphagia and communication there.

From the recent history that led SLPs to begin working in the ICU, to the SLP’s biggest ally in that environment, to what can happen to patients when they’re discharged, guests Marty Brodsky (Cleveland Clinic; Johns Hopkins) and Marta Kazandjian (Stony Brook Southampton Hospital; Stony Brook School of Health Professions) share their insights and expertise.

Learn More:

• ASHA Health Care Summit 2025: Grand Rounds in the ICU
• ASHA Voices: The Difference Patient Counseling Makes
• Wheeling AAC Support for Aphasia Into the ICU
• ASHA Practice Portal: Tracheostomy and Ventilator Dependence

Transcript

Support for this episode of ASHA Voices comes from Medbridge.

Patients receiving intensive care may experience emotions that affect their care and services. After a traumatic brain injury or tracheostomy, for example, patients may face many unknowns.

SLP Jasmine Keaney realizes this, which helps her navigate where to start and how to reach a patient. Counseling can be as important as direct intervention, she says.

Keaney is an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. She began her career working in long-term acute care, where she developed skills around counseling, and learned the value of building strong rapport with the people she treats.

On the podcast, she shares stories from her career, and practical ways SLPs can help patients through counseling.

Learn More:

•              When Aphasia Affects the Communication-Intensive Job of Parenting

•              A Communication Lifeline for Hospitalized Children

•              New AHA Statement Supports Palliative Care Throughout Post-Stroke Recovery

•              ASHA Special Interest Group 20, Counseling

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Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, SLP Rebecca Boersma of George Washington University Hospital’s Long COVID Rehabilitation Clinic says patients with long COVID are often feeling “left in the dust” as they navigate cognitive concerns, including brain fog and fatigue.

Boersma shares what she’s learned about the condition, and what she’s hoping to see next for the clinic and the people she serves there.

Plus, Julie Dana, one of the first patients to visit Boersma in the clinic, tells her long-COVID story.

Learn More:

• ASHA Evidence Maps: Summary of the Clinical Practice Guideline
• ASHA Voices: The Mysteries of Long COVID
• Elusive Words: Confronting the Post-Pandemic Skills Gap

Singers and other vocal performers can require complex care. As our guests explain, these “vocal athletes” may need a team of interdisciplinary providers on the sidelines.

Speech-language pathologist and researcher Aaron Johnson (NYU Langone Health) and singing coach Tyley Ross (New York University Tisch School of the Arts) join the podcast to have a conversation on voice care.

They discuss habilitation and rehabilitation of the voice. As Johnson puts it, “We oftentimes are not just bringing [clients] back to where they were … because what they were doing, sometimes, is what led them to being in our clinic in the first place.”

They describe where their work overlaps and diverges, specific techniques they use, how patients respond to their work, and the insights this work has provided into their own voices.

Learn More:

• Operatic SLP Treats Voice Disorders With Sensitivity
• ASHA Practice Portal: Voice Disorders
• Characterizing the Roles of Professionals

Speech-language pathologist Jennifer Cripps-Ludlum says her entire life is a mask.

As an adult, she discovered she is neurodivergent. The revelation arrived at the 2023 ASHA Convention, during a presentation on recognizing the signs of autism in young girls. After a subsequent panic attack, Cripps-Ludlum asked the presenter this question:

“What do you do if you spend so much time masking that you don’t know who you are anymore?”

On this episode of the podcast, Cripps-Ludlum shares a personal history of masking. She shares the forms masking takes in her life, and the associated emotional and physical toll. Plus, she explains why she’s found herself someplace she never expected to return to … high school.

Learn More:

• ASHA Voices: What a CSD Professor Learned About Autistic Masking While Creating Neuro-Affirming Spaces
• A Neurodivergent View: Give Us Strategies … With Choices
• Imagine True Inclusion: Defining the Social Model of Disability
• How Do We ‘Authentically’ Involve Autistic People in Research?

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“Autistic masking” refers to concealing or changing aspects of oneself to fit in or generally avoid stigmatization.

In her research and work with autistic students, SLP Siva priya Santhanam has seen the damaging effects stigma and masking can have on autistic students' mental health and well-being. An assistant professor at Bowling Green State University, Santhanam is a creator of neuro-affirming spaces for autistic students at universities.

In this new conversation, she shares what she’s learned about masking while creating these spaces. And she says supporting autistic ways of socializing and communication contributes to a campus community that is more affirming and inclusive of all students.

Learn More:

• An Interactive and Neurodiversity-Affirming Approach to Communication Supports for Autistic Students Through Videogaming
• From My Perspective/Opinion: Realizing Their Authentic Selves
• ASHA Voices: A University Autism Support Program Navigates COVID

Transcript

In the years before Jim Henry became an audiologist, he developed hyperacusis, hearing loss, and tinnitus while performing in surf rock bands and working in carpentry.

Following more than 35 years as a research audiologist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Henry is now the author of The Tinnitus Book and several others about managing the condition.

In anticipation of Tinnitus Awareness Week, Henry provides a personal account of his experience with tinnitus and discusses approaches to treatment. He reflects on how his career in audiology affected the way he thinks about tinnitus, and he explains some of the condition’s varied forms and effects.

Learn More:

• ASHA Practice Portal: Tinnitus and Hyperacusis
• ASHA Voices: What Tinnitus and mTBI Can Mean for Patients
• Customizing Tinnitus Counseling for Varying Patient Needs
• Video Game Volume Linked to Hearing Loss, Tinnitus Risk

Transcript

SLP Kim Murza visits the podcast with a message of strength.

Murza often speaks on strengths-based service delivery. On the podcast, she shares the form that takes in the schools, and what it means for students and SLPs alike.

Reflecting on her career, she shares the things she knows today that she wishes she knew early in her work in the schools.

Later in the podcast, hear parent, consultant, and advocate Tena Green share what can be gained in the lives of students and society through implementation of a strengths-based perspective.

Learn More

·     School-based SLPs: Here’s a Virtual “Backpack” of School Resources

·     Flip the Script: Maximizing the Positives in Children’s Lives

·     ASHA Voices: Conversations on Milestones and Speech-Language Delays

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