User:Stuhelmavl/sandbox

Dr. Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, Phd
Dr. Nancy Helm-Estabrooks is a distinguished aphasiologist and speech and language

pathologist whose insights have profoundly informed the current scientific understanding

on how to rehabilitate language after a brain injury. Her formal education includes a

Bachelor of Arts from University of Massachusetts, Amhers t in Speech/Hearing Therapy

and Psychology, a Masters of Education from Northeastern University in

Speech/Language Pathology and Doctor of Science from Boston University in

Communication Disorders.

She started her illustrious career in 1962 at The Children’s Hospital in Halifax, Canada.

In 1963, she became a Research Assistant in the School of Education at Boston

University. For the next two years, she worked as a Staff Speech Pathologist in the

Worcester County Hearing Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. From 1967-1972, she

worked as a Speech Pathologist in the St. Luke's Hospital Stroke Program in New

Bedford, Massachusetts.

In 1972, her career took a fateful turn when she accepted a position as a Research Speech

Pathologist at the Boston Veteran’s Hospitals’ Neurobehavior and Aphasia Unit. In the

two decades before her arrival, the Boston V.A. had become the U.S. epicenter of the

burgeoning field of behavioral neuroscience with the collaborative work of Harold

Goodglass, Edith Kaplan and Norman Geschwind. In a uniquely supportive academic

medical environment, researchers, clinicians and patients at the Boston V.A. worked

side-by-side using animal studies (conducted on site) and intensive clinical observation

using the Boston Process Approach. The results were dramatic advances in the

understanding of the human brain including where in the brain language production and

comprehension occurred.

It was in the fertile and encouraging environment of the Boston V.A. that Dr. Helm-

Estabrooks’ would spend the next 32 years contributing to the field of aphasia. In

addition to assessing and treating thousands of veterans with acquired brain injuries, she

helped design and implement the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, considered to

this day a gold-standard test for language disorders, and co-founded Melodic Intonation

Treatment (MIT). Throughout her time at the Boston V.A., she worked her way up from

Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Boston University School of Medicine, to

Associate Professor, to Professor. In 2001, she became the Co-Director of the Harold

Goodglass Aphasia Research Center and in 2003 the Director of Aphasia Rehabilitation

at the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center. She remained at the Boston VA, while

also lecturing at Harvard University, Clark University and Northeastern University, until

2008 when she moved to North Carolina and began working at Western Carolina

University in the Department of Communication Sciences. She currently serves as

the Brewer Smith Distinguished Professor there.

Dr. Helm-Estabrooks has held the position of Research Scientist at the National Center

for Neurogenic Communication Disorders at the University of Arizona, and

Research Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She also has

credentials with the American Speech and Hearing Association (link) and Academy of

Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, the latter of which she served

as President from 2002-2004.

She has received many prominent awards including ASHA Honors (2000), ANCDS

Honors (2005), the Sallie Starr Hillard Mentoring Award from the University of

Memphis (2007), the Frank R. Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award, American

Speech-Language Hearing Foundation (2012) and the Edith Kaplan Award from the

Massachusetts Neuropsychological Society (2013).

Dr. Helm-Estabrooks’ publications include over 100 peer-reviewed articles, 7 books

including The Manual of Aphasia and Aphasia Therapy, 23 chapters, and 6 standardized

tests. She has presented over 300 scholarly papers/poster presentations, short courses,

mini-seminars, and workshops to professional and scholarly conferences throughout

North America and in Central and South America, and Europe.

She made national headlines in 2011 when she provided speech therapy services to

assassination survivor and U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords. Gifford’s husband,

astronaut Mark Kelly, emailed Dr. Helm-Estabrooks and requested that she

consider developing additional speech-language services for his wife, in conjunction with

outpatient rehabilitation therapies she was receiving at the TIRR Memorial Hermann

Rehabilitation Hospita l in Houston. Dr. Helm-Estabrooks designed a

comprehensive program for Mrs. Giffords that included music therapy over Skype and

intensive in-person sessions in North Carolina and Arizona administered by Dr. Helm-

Estabrooks and her long-time colleague Marjorie Nicholas, the two met at the Boston VA

and she now works for the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health

Professions.