Michelle Bourgeois, professor, and Wayne Secord, senior research scientist, Speech and Hearing Science, were recently honored by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for their contributions to the professions of speech-language pathology, audiology, and speech and hearing science.

Secord was recognized with the Honors of the Association, the highest honor ASHA bestows, for contributions of such excellence that they have enhanced or altered the course of communication sciences and disorders. Bourgeois was honored with a Fellow of the Association, one of the highest honors ASHA bestows, for outstanding contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders.

Secord is a nationally recognized expert on clinical and educational assessment and the delivery of school-based services for children with special needs. His teaching, research, and service represent a lifetime of professional leadership and clinical excellence. His clinical publications and other innovations have helped millions of children with disabilities in communication, language, and literacy and empowered thousands of professionals in the field to succeed at levels many had not thought possible.

Secord is a Fellow of the Ohio Speech & Hearing Association (OSHA) and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and has received awards for outstanding clinical achievement. He has authored or co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, books, standardized tests and intervention programs on assessment and treatment of speech and language disorders, and served as the editor of Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, a major ASHA journal, from 1992 to 1998.

Secord earned his BS and MA degrees in Speech and Hearing Science from Ohio State in 1971 and 1977 respectively and his PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Cincinnati in 1980.

Bourgeois has received grants from the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) to investigate interventions for spousal and nursing home caregivers designed to improve the quality and quantity of communicative interactions with residents with dementia, to evaluate memory interventions for persons with dementia and traumatic brain injury, and to develop training programs for institutional caregivers. She also has received funding from the Alzheimer's Association to systematically investigate the use of memory aids with persons with dementia residing at home and in institutional settings. A clinical researcher, Bourgeois has published numerous research articles, training manuals and CDs, and books. She was honored in 2007 with the Barry Reisberg Award for Non-Pharmacologic Research, Theory, and Clinical Practice by the Hearthstone Foundation.

Bourgeois earned a BA in Linguistics and French from Georgetown University in 1976, a Masters in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Washington in 1978, and a PhD iN Communications Disorders from the University of Pittsburgh in 1988.