National Technical Institute for the Deaf feat. Dr. Amanda Picioli

Transcript

Blaise Delfino: 0:06

You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast with Dr. Gregory Delfino, and Blaise Delfino of Audiology Services and Fader Plugs, the show that discusses hearing technology, best practices, and a growing national epidemic; hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, special thank

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faster, dryer smarter, verified. On this episode, we are very, very excited to welcome Dr. Amanda Picioli. She is the chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Services at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. Amanda, welcome to the Hearing Matters Podcast.

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 1:07

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Blaise Delfino: 1:10

Well, we are so thrilled to have you on the show. Having done our research about your incredible career, all of the lives that you have influenced, changed positively influenced this episode is going to help so many individuals. Now Amanda, you are the Chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Services at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. Can you tell me what this entails?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 1:38

Sure, my department is made up of both audiology and speech language pathology. So I have six audiologists and six speech language pathologists in my department. And we're called Communication Studies and Services because we offer both curriculum and services to our students. So we offer a variety of courses related to communication to help students get prepared for their future jobs for interviews, even help with some homework. But then, on the other side, we also do some services too. So we have a full functioning audiology clinic right on campus for our deaf and hard of hearing students. And we also have a fully functioning speech and language clinic right on campus as well, that the students can take advantage of.

Blaise Delfino: 2:24

Amanda speech and audiology. Those departments are typically always on the same floor, and the speech language pathologist or SLPs, and audiologists, they work so well together, what is the positive influence of having speech and audiology on campus?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 2:41

It's just really nice for our students, many of them have grown up with access to these types of services very readily at home. And then you take the student away from home. And for example, what if something happens to their device or their cochlear implant, then they're without sound. So it's nice to have us right on campus because they don't have to go off campus worry about transportation, and they are just able to receive the services right there on campus for both audiology and speech language. And it's really nice to have them both together. Because as you said, we work so well together, we are there to bounce ideas off of each other, and really work with the student and just give them a well rounded approach to their communication.

Blaise Delfino: 3:25

You and I both know the importance of keeping the hearing technology, working properly programmed correctly, dry with limited moisture that is so important. Amanda, when you teach, do you use ASL? Or do you speak to the students? And what technology is available to the students in the classroom?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 3:47

When I'm teaching? I personally will survey the students as I believe most of the professors will survey the students in the classroom and say, you know, what is your preferred method of communication? Do you want ASL? Do you want simultaneous communication? Do you want only spoken language? And I try to gauge what they want and what they tell me and do whatever best fits their needs. So a lot of the times I may use simultaneous communication, but then if someone's not understanding, then I can go back and reiterate my message in ASL only. So it's really whatever works best for the student as far as communication in the classroom themselves. Again, it depends on what the student needs. Do they need an FM system? Do they need interpreting note taking captioning? All of that is available to the students just based on what their preference is.

Blaise Delfino: 4:40

Amanda, I have a friend His name is Matt Hay and he had a brain stem implant at 19 years old. And when he talks about the accessibility now and the technological advances, for example, if he is on a zoom call, he will use Otter AI for transcription. What have you seen in your students using especially for closed captioning, subtitles, transcription and the advancement of technology, from when he first started to now has to be leaps and bounds ahead of when you first entered the field?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 5:13

the hang of something, and then something new is out, or I haven't even heard of it until it brings it up. And I think oh, I have to check that out. Now, our students do really like using Otter AI, it's decently accurate, of course, the best solution would be to have an actual captioning doing the job, that's the best solution and you're gonna get the most accuracy with that. But sometimes that's just not possible. So they are using Otter AI, Microsoft translate a lot of those things. There's all sorts of free things to use for captioning. Apple has also developed a captioning system right on their app. So has Tiger chat. And if you have the IP mobile app downloaded to your phone, you can just pop that open and use that one as well. And I really do like that one too. And you can invite someone to a private conversation. There's a lot of neat features in it.

Blaise Delfino: 6:14

That is really, really cool, especially when we understand language and speech and creating those friendships. These students are creating long term friendships and things of that nature. So to have this technology that is accessible, readily available, absolutely amazing. Amanda, can you give me some background on school in and of itself? How many students do you have? Where do they come from? And what does a deaf or hard of hearing student have to do when he or she applies to NTID?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 6:47

NTID is one of the nine colleges that makes up our IT Rochester Institute of Technology in NTID. That college itself was established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1965. And we have around 1100, deaf and hard of hearing students from all over the US and internationally that come to our school. And about half of the students take classes at NTID and half take classes at the other colleges up at RMIT. To get into NTID,you have to submit an audiogram you have to submit your FAFSA for financial aid, and high school transcripts and all of those determine your financial aid and your acceptance to NTID. Alrighty, but an audiogram is part of it. So we are looking for obviously students with some hearing loss.

Blaise Delfino: 7:45

Dr. Picioli, what special services does NTID offer that you think attracts so many students?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 7:53

So there's a variety of things that I think make us unique. First of all, we are well versed in working with deaf and hard of hearing students across all forms of communication. And it's just very comforting, I think to students and parents to send their kids off to school, knowing that there are professionals on campus that can help them that actually understand what's going on. The courses at NTID are taught by professors that no American sign language so it's fully accessible to those who want to use Sign Language as communication. And as I mentioned before, you can choose captioning, note taking, interpreting FM systems, all of those are readily available on campus. We offer all of those, of course at no charge to the students including an FM loaner. Those are offered to the students free of charge and NTID has the largest group of full time interpreters on staff than any other college in the world of interpreters.

Blaise Delfino: 8:56

And sign language is one of the most beautiful languages I took sign language at East Stroudsburg University and it was taught by Dr. Susan Dilworth Miller she is the audiologist at ESU. And it was such a fun class learning a different language and really how beautiful it was Dr. Picioli, we actually had to make like a music video and sign language and that was such a fun project and such a beautiful language. Dr. Piciolo NTID is part of our IT which you had previously stated a couple of minutes ago. And both of those names imply that the school is geared students interested in careers in science and technology. Is that true for most students, and what other majors do your students pursue?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 9:40

I actually wrote some down to say, would give you a good glimpse of what everything that it has to offer. There's over 200 majors at RMIT engineering, computer science cybersecurity, fine arts, photography, healthcare programs like physician's assistants and nutrition, liberal arts majors like psychology communications, and they can earn degrees from associate level to PhD. So there's lots of things to choose from.

Blaise Delfino: 10:10

How does your faculty assist in gearing the students toward a major of maybe what they're most passionate and what they'll really excel at?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 10:18

Well, NTID specifically does something right when the students get to school, they do sampling. So you get to go around to a variety of the majors and kind of get a feel of what it's like and what it's some of the courses and some of the things you can learn if you decide to go with one of those majors, so they get a taste of some of the options that we have. So that definitely helps. There's also placement exams and things. And we do have a great staff of counselors that are available to help the students make those decisions. And of course, once you decide it's not a permanent decision, you can change your major. And I'm sure a lot of people do that.

Blaise Delfino: 11:03

I think that's a wonderful approach. That is such a wonderful approach. Dr. Picioli, can you give us a few examples of alumni who have gone on to do amazing things?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 11:14

Sure. So I've made some notes on this one, too. There's more than 9000 alumni out there who work in areas of business government, nonprofit, there's alumni who work for many Fortune 500 companies. And as far as specific people to mention, Roberta Mather is a member of the global affairs team for the US State Department in Washington. Dr. Scott Wills. He's a research assistant for the Dow Chemical Company, Daniel Durant is an actor in Hollywood. He recently starred in the film Coda with Marley Matlin. And then Philip Rubin is an architect in the Palm Springs, California area. So those are just some examples of some of our alumni.

Blaise Delfino: 12:02

And what's so amazing Dr. Picioli, thank you and your entire staff and faculty and everyone in this industry that is positively influencing the lives of these students. They are not letting their decrease in hearing sensitivity affect them, they are going on to do incredible, amazing things. And they're so young and the world is an oyster shell for them. So thank you, and your staff for all the incredible things you are doing. As an audiologist what prompted you to teach because in the field of audiology, you can do a lot of different things, but really what prompted you to teach? I'm sure you find your job very fulfilling. Can you tell me more about that?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 12:43

I was really lucky getting the job that I did. Not many people can say that they use all of their college degrees and I am well I started off as my bachelor's in speech language. And then I received my deaf education degree. So I was teaching before I was an audiologist. And then I became an audiologist. And I did an internship at NJIT, because I already knew sign language. So it was a perfect place to complete my audiology internship. And then after I completed that I ended up getting a job there and I've never left, I'm able to do clinical work, I'm able to teach deaf and hard of hearing students. And it's just a really great place to work. And I do love my job. And I don't know that there are enough people that can say that about their job. But I absolutely love what I'm doing. I meet so many great people. I've developed so many great relationships with my colleagues. We accept students to come into our department from colleges all over the US for their doctoral fourth year experience and internship experiences for speech language pathology, and it's just really great clinical work teaching and all the students.

Blaise Delfino: 13:56

Dr. Piciole, for any students tuned in right now who are studying audiology, and have a deep burning passion to help individuals who present with hearing loss, what advice would you give them for those who are maybe just starting school and even finishing their last year on externship?

Dr. Amanda Picioli: 14:15

I would advise you to really look into deaf culture and how to work with clients that experience significant hearing loss. As you mentioned, the field of audiology is so broad, that you kind of have to pick a specialty area is all related to hearing loss, but there's also balance disorders and hearing protection. So there's lots of different specialty areas. But one thing that a lot of programs don't have time for unfortunately is work with Deaf clients, how to communicate with them, how to be culturally sensitive, oftentimes, profoundly deaf, hard of hearing people may have had a bad experience because the audiologist just wasn't trained or knowledgeable about what they really need. So I'd say if you are interested in working with the deaf and hard of hearing population like I do, then I would definitely look into learning more about Deaf culture taking sign language classes and focusing on that.

Blaise Delfino: 15:11

You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast with Dr. Gregory Delfino and Blaise Delfino of Audiology Services and Fader Plugs. Today we had Dr. Amanda Picioli, who is the chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Services at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. Until next time, hear life's story!