Students

Rachel Benninger, BA, CDA, MASc

M.Cl.Sc/PhD Candidate

Biography / Research Interests: Rachel is a fourth year student in the combined MClSc/PhD program in speech-language pathology. Her current research is a design research project to codesign a curriculum-based spoken language assessment for use by specialist teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Rachel completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Waterloo, followed by a graduate certificate in the Communicative Disorders Assistant program at Georgian College. Rachel has also completed her MASc in Psychology (Developmental and Communication Science) at the University of Waterloo, where her research focused on syntactic priming in children’s naturalistic language use.

Niloufar Ansari Dezfuly

PhD Candidate

Biography / Research Interests: Niloufar is in her fourth year of the Ph.D. program. Her current research focus is on redesigning and modifying the Token Test as a systematic assessment tool that evaluates one's working memory and language skills. She completed her Master's degree at Western University studying Spanish linguistics with a focus on auditory sensory memory, bilingualism and musical experience.

Diya Nair

PhD Student

Biography / Research Interests: Diya is in her first year of the Ph.D. program. Her current research focus is on narrative skills in children and the influence question types have on a child's narrative skills. She completed her Master's degree in Health and Rehabilitation at Western University. Diya has also completed her Bachelor's in Audiology and Speech Language Pathology (BASLP) from India and worked as an SLP for close to two years.