Audrey Holland: Impacts across a Discipline and Individuals

This issue is dedicated to the contributions and memory of Dr. Audrey Holland. Among her many accomplishments, she served as coeditor on the third editorial team of Seminars in Speech and Language (SSL). Thus, it is fitting that numerous of her colleagues and collaborators have worked to celebrate her achievements and legacy in this volume.

I will sketch only a few of Audrey's numerous seminal activities. More detailed information about her professional and personal life can be found at: https://slhs.arizona.edu/news/remembering-audrey-holland.

Audrey was a lifetime Pitt Panther, receiving her undergraduate, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. After a short stint at Emerson College, she returned to Pitt as a faculty member, moving to the University of Arizona to serve as the chair of its CSD department. She retired in 2010 but continued active involvement in the field until her death in 2023 at the age of 90 years. A bibliographic listing of her more than 200 publications would fill a large portion of the pages allocated to this volume; so, we encourage readers to visit Google Scholar or similar sites to appreciate the sheer scope of her research contributions.

Audrey's most visible achievements were in the study of aphasia, particularly more effective interventions for stroke survivors. One of her first articles, cited hundreds of times from its publication to the current day, was to investigate the use of melodic intonation therapy (MIT), codeveloped by her SSL editorial predecessor, Nancy Helm-Estabrooks. Over the years, Audrey's work expanded to include a strong focus on counseling individuals who have experienced a range of neurogenic communication disorders, as well as their families. Contributors to this issue emphasize her numerous ground-breaking activities and publications that forever changed our understanding of acquired communication disorders. Central to all of the articles is a focus on seeing aphasia in a much larger and person-centered context than scores on a conventional aphasia test.

Fromm and MacWhinney set the stage by sharing Audrey's life and personal impacts on people over the years. They track her personal evolution from someone who studied language and behavior through somewhat discrete categorical frames to her evolution as a mentor to researchers and clinicians who, with her by their sides, went on to see their clients and patients as individuals and families whose lives were broadly upended by aphasia and whose care required a much larger view of clinical care. Along the way, they review her collaborative work that endures in the form of resources such as AphasiaBank, and a wide array of assessment tools. Milman and Murray pick up on these tools and next review the major ways in which Audrey Holland transformed the process of aphasia assessment and evaluation to its current state of the art. Not only did Audrey make substantive improvements to standardized measures of language skill but also pioneered new measures of functional skill, with an eye toward setting the groundwork for intervention that could achieve functional improvement following impairment due to brain insult or injury.

Armstrong et al focus on the critical use of groups in enabling functional progress. They note Audrey's transformational influence in bringing change to how aphasia has been addressed in Australia over the years. Currie et al describe the impacts of gratitude interventions, a direct legacy of Audrey's focus on managing the substantive life impacts of aphasia well beyond its narrow impacts on communication ability, to create an emphasis on the wellbeing of the patient and family. Hinckley and Patterson address the impacts of activity-focused treatment (in contrast to impairment-focused treatment), with its emphasis on person-centered goals and contexts.

Ramage et al focus on the use of narrative skills in gauging a broad range of skills in persons with aphasia. Audrey was also a pioneer in this area of inquiry and application, and the narrative database in AphasiaBank is an ongoing testimony to that body of work. Hickey et al round out the volume by noting the impacts that Audrey's work has had over the years and, currently, on best practices in working with people who have dementia.

Tougher and Bogart highlight Audrey Holland's invaluable contributions to the care of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). As they note, she was instrumental in many ways. First and foremost, Audrey distinguished both the profiles and needs of such patients from those with aphasia, to whom they were often somewhat inappropriately compared. As with aphasia, Audrey emphasized the social contexts and needs that are relevant to best care in individuals with TBI. Finally, they emphasize her fundamental role in fostering the development of TBI Bank and of CLAN utilities to perform in-depth, automated analysis of patient/participant language samples.

Finally, Richardson et al use their contribution to focus on Audrey's lived experiences as an inspirational road map for current and future researchers. Perhaps nowhere among our professional colleagues have the personal and professional value systems intermeshed quite as seamlessly as they did in Audrey Holland's life. Her life work truly was a labor of love, a love that survives her both in her scientific contributions and the cherished memories of these contributors and countless others fortunate enough to have had some “Audrey time” in their lives.

This volume could not be large enough to contain sufficient testimony to Audrey's legacy. A number of past colleagues wanted to take a moment to comment on the difference that Audrey made in their lives and work, but we could not include enough articles. Instead, we will take a moment here to convey their thoughts.

Linda Worrell of the University of Queensland wrote that “Not many people can claim to have changed the lives of a whole international community. Professor Audrey Holland changed the lives of the international aphasia community. She did that through remaining connected with people with aphasia and their family, as well as with aphasia clinicians and researchers like me. In her direct no-nonsense way of talking, she exhorted us to help people with aphasia communicate in the real world and helped us to understand the psychosocial damage that aphasia does to a person and their family. Her gift was to act as a conduit between the voice of people with aphasia & their families and the world of aphasia therapists and researchers. Her generosity, charisma, and vision inspired many of us to follow her lead, take up the battle cry, and amplify her message a thousand-fold. This issue is in keeping with this legacy. Each paper reflects Audrey's research interests and each author was inspired to pursue their topic by the late great Professor Audrey Holland. Vale Audrey.”

Roberta Elman noted that “A great communicator, Audrey was curious to get to know everyone in the world. She definitely had the gift of engaging people, including those living with aphasia, but also her tour guide, her hairdresser, a graduate student she had met, and the restaurant waiter. You may be surprised that she and I rarely talked about aphasia … instead, we spent time musing about travel and good food, the antics of her many animals, including the most recent cats, Ruffin and Harley, and her favorite boutique in Tucson. Planning a dinner together became my biggest challenge. Early on in our friendship, I managed to get a dinner reservation at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Audrey was a huge fan of the chef/owner, Alice Waters, and Audrey had a huge “fan girl” moment when Alice invited her into the kitchen to watch her prepare part of that evening's meal. It was hard to top that going forward, but we did our best at the French Laundry and other amazing eateries. My favorite times with Audrey were spent at her home in Tucson, the “Hollanday Inn,” with a glass of wine, some pieces of cheese, and the warm glow of the living room lights. Talk often turned to the Dordogne region of France or an upcoming trip she was planning to see the polar bears in Alaska. We talked about politics, sports, home design, and buying cat food. We made plans to go to the farmers' market, remembering to bring dog biscuits for all the dogs she knew would be there. Audrey was a friend, a confident, and at times a second mother. Our final professional collaboration for Plural Publishing, Neurogenic Communication Disorders and the Life Participation Approach, was Audrey's way of showcasing younger authors. She managed to connect everyone in the world of aphasia to the very end. Audrey's legacy will live on in those of us who adopt her amazing example of approaching life.”

Cynthia K. Thompson, Ralph and Jean Sundin Professor Emerita at Northwestern University, wrote that Prof. Dr. Audrey Ann Longridge Holland significantly impacted so, so many people's lives, from those with aphasia and their families to aphasia clinicians and researchers. She was devoted to understanding and developing treatment for aphasia. She wrote many papers (and books) focused on the treatment of aphasia throughout her career. She brought researchers together, planning meetings in Cody, Montana, and Lerici, Italy, to talk (and write) about the treatment for aphasia and to solve related issues.

Few may know that her roots were in behavioral psychology, with one of her first papers focused on using programmed instruction to improve sentence production in aphasia. Of note, this paper influenced my work in sentence processing, albeit with a shift from a behavioral to a psycholinguistic focus.

She is most well-known for her work focused on promoting functional communication and psychosocial well-being. A leader in the field, she was among those to first recognize that aphasia is more than impairment in language; it is life-impactful, affecting its every facet. Her steadfast, indefatigable dedication to the person with aphasia impelled the profession to follow her lead.

This issue of Seminars reflects her legacy—her profound contributions to aphasiology. On a personal note, Audrey was a dear, dear friend. We traveled together, shopped together, ate together, and talked about everything from politics to books, to theatre and opera, to cats and dogs, and all our four-legged friends. We shared all our stories. I loved her—her smile, her laugh, her powerful wisdom and insight, and her passion. She was a brilliant, precious person. I miss her terribly.

And now, a personal reflection: In most possible universes, I would have not interacted much with Audrey Holland. As someone who works primarily in preschool language and fluency disorders, it would have seemed difficult for us to find occasions to be at the same meetings, let alone in the same room. But life is strange: Audrey and I worked together, rather intensively, on two separate initiatives over many years. One, of course, was our work together as coeditors of Seminars. As is still the case, to provide informed coverage of issues across the full span of CSD for practitioners, we cooperated to put together balanced special issues that bridged our specialty areas. Audrey's first issue as co-editor-in-chief in 2005 was “Sub-clinical communication disorders” and it tracked her enduring interest in often-ignored issues when working with adult clients: speaking fears, voice problems, and foreign accents. Such issues do not represent pathology, but they do represent important areas of everyday social function for which an SLP can provide informed guidance. She noted that the topic enabled the reader to consider “wellness” rather than illness, a theme that particularly guided her activities in her later years as a wellness coach. Fittingly, the issue ended with a discussion of counseling principles.

A decade later, Audrey concluded her run as editor with a 2016 issue on “Forecasting the Future: Expert Opinions for the Next Decade for Adult Speech and Language Disorders.” Some contributors to that issue are back to provide updates in the current volume (Hinckley and Bourgeois). True to her creative angels, she asked experts in a wide number of areas of adult communication skills to speculate what the next 10 years would be like in terms of changes from our comfort zones in theory and practice. It is a truly fascinating read, and many of the anticipated changes are upon us, particularly a greater focus on client-centered, personalized care, aided in part by advances in technology. Always true to her generous spirit, in the preface, she thanked readers for giving her the opportunity to work on their behalf.

However, parallel to our work together on SSL, Audrey and I also found ourselves joined in another cooperative venture, the growth of the TalkBank initiative (discussed by Davida Fromm and Brian MacWhinney in this issue). I had been associated with the first incarnation of TalkBank, the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), from my earliest stages of research work. Following the transformative impact of CHILDES, Brian and Audrey envisioned a parallel archive dedicated not only to aphasia research but also to clinical training via a Ground Rounds initiative. Based on her success in creating a “bigger tent” for data-sharing and education in the field of aphasia (for which the Council on Academic Programs in CSD would later honor Audrey), TalkBank would later grow to include FluencyBank (to support work in typical fluency development, stuttering, and cluttering), and we would be joined once more in a mutually fulfilling collaborative venture that brought two people with very different foci into close interaction.

I adored working with Audrey and always learned so much from her. Something that is difficult to convey from written contributions is how dynamic, passionate, and informed Audrey was, whether lecturing to a crowd or conversing at a quiet lunch table with someone who much preferred to be working with preschoolers. Audrey was simply a magnificent inspiration for me (and for so many others). If a single reader leaves this issue with a sense of her wonder, determination, and can-do spirit, I am sure that would be the most fitting tribute any of us can give her.

Publication History

Article published online:
28 October 2024