Rowe Center helps with language skills

As one child plays the game Kerplunk!, another child draws slips of paper out of a bag and answers questions. These are two different children receiving two different types of speech therapy, but both are clients of the Rowe Center, on the campus of ISU.

The Margaret Rowe Center for Communicative Diseases, or the Rowe Center, as it is commonly called, is on the fourth floor of the College of Education.

The Rowe Center, dedicated in 1979 in honor of former ISU instructor Margaret Rowe, is a free-of-charge clinic used as a service to children and adults of Terre Haute and surrounding areas.

The Center is a teaching clinic, which means juniors, seniors and graduate students at ISU work with the clients under the supervision of a licensed speech-language pathologist. The nine speech-language pathologists are not solely from ISU; some come from other school districts in order to be a part of the clinic.

The Rowe Center sees approximately 60-80 clients each semester, and each client receives a 50-minute session twice a week. Sessions are held either on Mondays and Wednesdays, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Center has featured a wide variety of clients with ages ranging from two to 84. However, the majority of clients are school-aged children.

The clinic assists persons with articulation, language, stuttering, voice disorders and cognitive disorders. A person with a cognitive disorder has "difficulties perceiving, remembering, imagining, judging and reasoning" according to the Rowe Center client guide.

The clinic also assists people with autism, aphasia, and apraxia. Autism is "a bio-neurological developmental disability that generally appears before the age of 3," according to the National Autism Association. Aphasia is "a communication disorder caused by damage to the brain," and apraxia is "a motor-speech programming disorder," as stated in the clinic client guide.

Clinic Coordinator Amanda Solesky said, "Some clients only need therapy for one or two semesters, while others need therapy for three or four years."

Solesky also said the construction of the new College of Education building will mean exciting things for the Rowe Center. Unlike its current location, which was originally set up for dorms, the Rowe Center in University Hall will have a space specially reserved for a comprehensive clinic, which will have areas for psychology, counseling, and communication disorders.

With many different aspects, the Rowe Center contributes to ISU and also to the Terre Haute area. Solesky said she liked "to see not only the clients that come, but also the students working with them improve their skills."