McNair Scholar 2024 - Enengy Schutt
Enengy Schutt is an aspiring bilingual speech-language pathologist (SLP) whose passion lies in improving the quality of life and communication of patients in rehabilitation for neurogenic disorders. With tenacity, she plans to earn a PhD to continue and deepen her involvement in applied, interdisciplinary research in communication sciences and disorders.
Quote from Enengy Schutt
Research, employment, and volunteer opportunities have made gaps between current literature, treatment, and patient needs apparent throughout my undergraduate journey. I dream of dedicating my graduate degrees to recruiting principles of representation and inclusion to research in order to incur knowledge and treatment that is accessible and generalizable– based on evidence and outcomes
Research project
Objective Measurement of Cognitive Effort in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Abstract
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the result of brain damage from blunt force, and has a variable symptom profile with possible cognitive, emotional, and physical impairments. Heightened experience of effort is one commonly-reported symptom, but in clinical rehabilitation cognitive effort has typically been measured via self-report, which is subjective and variable. Pupillometry, the moment-to-moment tracking and measurement of pupil size, has been empirically shown to objectively measure cognitive effort. This study will employ pupillometry to examine moment-to-moment cognitive effort during a listening task and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine the lived daily experience of cognitive effort after TBI. We aim to enroll 25 participants with mild TBI, 25 with moderate-severe TBI, and 50 demographically-matched neurotypical comparison participants. Anticipated results include assessment of the feasibility and reliability of pupillometry in this population, between-group comparisons of goal-directed momentary cognitive effort, and insight into patients’ lived experience of effort.
Faculty mentor
Natalie V. Covington, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an assistant professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Department, principal investigator of the Trajectories After Brain Injury (TABI) lab at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, and rehabilitation research scientist with Allina Health Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Research. Dr. Covington has interdisciplinary expertise in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience, in addition to being a clinically-trained speech-language pathologist. Her research focuses on cognitive impairments post-brain injury, with a particular focus on long-term recovery after traumatic brain injury. She also studies how language and memory systems interact to support successful human communication.