{"id":11952,"date":"2022-07-29T09:32:35","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T14:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/?p=11952"},"modified":"2023-01-19T14:06:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T20:06:42","slug":"students-professor-help-create-translation-guide-for-refugee-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/2022\/07\/29\/students-professor-help-create-translation-guide-for-refugee-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Students, professor help create translation guide for refugee families"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Morgan
Morgan Knutson and Breanna Wolter<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Communication between Ukrainian refugees, their host families and agencies in European countries such as the Netherlands was helped by an unlikely source \u2013 the Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two graduate students in speech-language pathology and a professor helped create a \u201cRefugee Dictionary.\u201d It is a compilation of 124 common words, each depicted with an image and the word translated into English, Dutch, German, French, Russian and Ukrainian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur job was to connect pictures with words and coordinate it,\u201d said Pam Terrell, professor in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). \u201cThe students did the work and all of the problem solving for this project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students are Morgan Knutson, Kenosha, and Breanna Wolter, Appleton (pictured above.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dictionary stemmed from what Terrell called a \u201cfunny happenstance\u201d within a Facebook group. Among her online friends was a German woman living in the Netherlands who was working with Ukrainian refugees. She was a linguist who mentioned she was trying to develop a refugee dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said I knew of a computer software program that might help,\u201d said Terrell. She was referring to Boardmaker, a tool often used in communicative sciences and disorders for those unable to speak. It uses images to depict words for non-speakers \u2013 images that have been researched and developed specifically to depict objects, actions, documents, locations and more. Non-speakers can use the software to point to the object and communicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The \u201cRefugee Dictionary\u201d uses common images and translates words into six languages to help refugees and their families communicate in new communities.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Terrell brought the idea to Julia Fischer, head of the CSD program, who thought it would make a great project for their graduate assistants in the clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really interested and intrigued in using Boardmaker that way,\u201d said Wolter, whose primary work was in the Augmentative and Alternative Communication Lab (AAC). \u201cI never thought I\u2019d be using AAC software for that kind of project, so seeing it used more broadly was exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German linguist provided the team with words that were needed \u2013 those pertaining to families, young children, pregnant women, health, food and other necessities \u2013 translated into the six languages. The students entered each word into an Excel sheet and worked with Boardmaker to insert the words into charts with the images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knutson and Wolter soon realized that they would need to update the software to recognize Cyrillic characters used in the Ukrainian and Russian languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once completed, the dictionary was sent to Terrell\u2019s online contact and shared with refugee agencies in The Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether it helps 500 or 5,000 people, we are spreading awareness of the different ways we can communicate with each other,\u201d said Terrell. \u201cWe discovered that we can use these tools for people who have communication barriers unrelated to disabilities as well as for literacy education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolter and Knutson agreed that this project will benefit their careers as it taught them problem-solving and critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile I didn\u2019t have any experience in augmentative communication before, I can see now how I can use it in my career,\u201d said Knutson, who also works in the clinic\u2019s media center. \u201cIt was a great experience to help people communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope to look into doing more specialized work with augmentative and alternate communication in the future,\u201d Wolter said. \u201cI like knowing we can expand its uses to a greater population.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UW-Stevens Point offers graduate degrees in speech-language pathology and audiology, and a bachelor\u2019s degree in communication sciences. The Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic is a clinical training facility that serves the university and Central Wisconsin area. Learn more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Courtesy of University Communications and Marketing<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communication between Ukrainian refugees, their host families and agencies in European countries such as the Netherlands was helped by an unlikely source \u2013 the Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Two graduate students in speech-language pathology and a professor helped create a \u201cRefugee Dictionary.\u201d It is a compilation of 124 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,15,546,19],"tags":[595,300,305,341,342,343,344],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12113,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952\/revisions\/12113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}