Erin Meier

Email: emeier@bu.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, Boston University (2018)
  • M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology, Purdue University (2008)
  • B.A. in Communication Sciences and Disorders, Augustana College (2006)

Credentials

  • Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP)
  • Speech-language pathologist state licensure in Massachusetts and Illinois

Research Interests

The primary focus of my research is to advance our understanding of the nature of beneficial neural reorganization of language in stroke-induced chronic aphasia. Specifically, I hypothesize that the current debate of whether successful language processing in persons with aphasia (PWA) necessitates recruitment of isolated regions in the left versus right hemisphere oversimplifies complex recovery phenomena. Instead, I propose an alternative, working hypothesis (see below) and am using methods of structural and effective brain connectivity to determine how brain structure-function dynamics relate to behavior. My long-term goal is to use such methods to improve prognostication of PWA response to therapy and recovery outcomes.

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Published Papers

  • Gilmore, N., Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., & Kiran, S. (2018). Non-linguistic cognitive factors predict treatment-induced recovery in chronic post-stroke aphasia. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., & Kiran, S. (2018). Left frontotemporal effective connectivity during semantic feature judgments in patients with chronic aphasia and age-matched healthy controls. Cortex, 108, 173-192.
  • Gilmore, N., Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., & Kiran, S. (2018). Typicality-based semantic treatment for anomia results in multiple levels of generalisation. Neuropsychological rehabilitation, 1-27.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Villard, S. & Kiran, S. (2017). Does Naming Therapy Make Ordering in a Restaurant Easier? Dynamics of Co-Occurring Change in Cognitive-Linguistic and Functional Communication Skills in Aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(2), 266-280. DOI: 10.1044/2016_AJSLP-16-0028.
  • Meier, E. L., Kapse, K. J., & Kiran, S. (2016). The relationship between frontotemporal effective connectivity during picture naming, behavior, and preserved cortical tissue in chronic aphasia. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 10, 109. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00109. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00109/full
  • Meier, E. L., Lo, M., & Kiran, S. (2016). Understanding semantic and phonological processing deficits in adults with aphasia: Effects of category and typicality. Aphasiology, 30(6), 719-749. DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2015.1081137.
  • Kiran, S., Meier, E., Kapse, K., & Glynn, P. (2015). Changes in task-based effective connectivity in language networks following rehabilitation in post-stroke patients with aphasia. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 9, 316. DOI:10.3389/fnhum.2015.00316. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00316/full

 

Professional Conferences & Invited Talks

  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Pan, Y., & Kiran, S. (2018, October). The utility of lesion classification models in predicting language abilities and treatment outcomes in persons with aphasia. Oral presentation at the 56thannual meeting of the Academy of Aphasia, Montréal, Canada.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Pan, Y., & Kiran, S. (2018, August). Beyond left hemisphere versus right hemisphere in aphasic language recovery: Evidence from effective connectivity during lexical-semantic processing. Poster presentation at the 10th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Québec City, Canada.
  • Meier, E. L., Kiran, S., Kurani, A., Higgins, J., Parrish, T., Rapp, B., Caplan, D., & Thompson, C. K. (2018, May). Changes in white matter integrity following sentence processing, naming and spelling treatment for patients with chronic aphasia. Invited speaker for the Research Symposium in Clinical Aphasiology (RSCA) at the 48thAnnual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Austin, TX.
  • Meier, E. L., Pan, Y., Higgins, J., Kurani, A., Parrish, T., Thompson, C. K., & Kiran, S. (2018, May). Structural predictors of naming therapy outcomes in persons with aphasia. Oral presentation at the 48thAnnual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Austin, TX.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Pan, Y., Kurani, A., Higgins, J., Parrish, T., Thompson, C. K., & Kiran, S. (2018, March).  Multimodal structural predictors of naming therapy outcomes in persons with aphasia. Poster presentation at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Boston, MA.
  • Meier, E. L. & Kiran, S. (2017, November). Left hemisphere frontotemporal effective connectivity during semantic feature judgments: Differences between patients with aphasia and healthy controls. Poster presentation at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Baltimore, MD. SNL2017_Meier&Kiran_SF DCM_FINAL
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Geng, Y., Kurani, A., Higgins, J., Parrish, T., Thompson, C. K. & Kiran, S. (2017, November). White matter matters in the recovery of language in post-stroke aphasia. Poster presentation at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Baltimore, MD. SNL2017_White matter matters_FINAL
  • Chaturvedi, S., Johnson, J. P., Meier, E. L., Geng, Y., & Kiran, S. (2017, November). Changes in neural activity during a semantic verification task as a result of treatment in persons with aphasia. Poster presentation at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Baltimore, MD.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., & Kiran, S. (2017, November). A clinician’s guide to neuroimaging techniques for acquired brain injury. Oral presentation at the 2017 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Los Angeles, CA.
  • Johnson, J. P., Des Roches, C. D., Meier, E. L., Gilmore, N., & Kiran, S. (2017, November). The multidimensional nature of aphasia: Predicting and documenting treatment outcomes with linguistic and cognitive measures. Oral presentation at the 2017 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Los Angeles, CA.
  • Gilmore, N., Johnson, J. P., Meier, E. L., Des Roches, C. D., & Kiran, S. (2017, November). The multidimensional nature of aphasia: Using factors beyond language to predict treatment outcomes. Oral presentation at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia, Baltimore, MD.
  • Meier, E. L. (2017, October). A Sargent PhD student’s research journey: Past, present and future. Invited PhD student speaker at the 2017 Dean’s Advisory Board meeting for Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, New York, NY.
  • Johnson, J. P., Meier, E. L., Gilmore, N., Des Roches, C. D., & Kiran, S. (2017, October). Predicting gains from aphasia rehabilitation using measures of language and cognition. Oral presentation at the ACRM 94th Annual Conference, Progress in Rehabilitation Medicine, Atlanta, GA.
  • Gilmore, N., Meier, E., Johnson, J., Cardullo, S., & Kiran, S. (2017, May). Treatment and generalization effects of training atypical exemplars of semantic categories for patients with chronic aphasia. Poster presentation at the 47th Annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Snowbird, UT.
  • Meier, E. L. (2017, May). The effect of task demands on frontotemporal connectivity during lexical-semantic processing in post-stroke aphasia. Lightening talk at the MIT BCS Workshop: “The relationship between executive functions and language processing”, Cambridge, MA.
  • Meier, E. L. (2017, April). Frontotemporal connectivity during lexical-semantic processing in chronic post-stroke aphasia. Lightening talk at the Language Processing and Recovery in Aphasia Symposium, Boston, MA.
  • Buckshaw, R., Meier, E. L., & Kiran, S. (2017, March). Effective connectivity of aphasic bilingual semantic processing. Poster presentation at the 2017 Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual meeting, San Francisco, CA.
  • Gilmore, N., Johnson, J., Meier, E., Cardullo, S., & Kiran, S. (2016, December). Treatment and generalization effects of training atypical exemplars of well-defined categories for patients with chronic aphasia. Oral presentation at the 2016 International Aphasia Rehabilitation Conference, London, England, United Kingdom.
  • Meier, E. L., & Kiran, S. (2016, October). Frontotemporal effective connectivity during semantic feature judgments in patients with aphasia versus healthy controls. Poster presentation at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia, Llandudno, Wales, United Kingdom.
  • Johnson, J. P., Meier, E. L., Caplan, D., & Kiran, S. (2016, June). Treatment-induced changes in anatomical and functional regions of interest in people with aphasia. Poster presentation at the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Geneva, Switzerland.
  • Meier, E. L., Johnson, J. P., Villard, S., & Kiran, S. (2016, May). Does naming therapy make ordering in a restaurant easier?: Dynamics of co-occurring change in cognitive-linguistic and functional communication skills in aphasia. Oral presentation at the 46th Annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Charlottesville, VA.
  • Johnson, J. P., Meier, E. L., Caplan, D., & Kiran, S. (2016, May). Effects of semantic feature-based naming therapy on anatomical and functional regions of interest in people with aphasia. Oral presentation at the 46th Annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Charlottesville, VA.
  • Meier, E., Villard, S., Johnson, J., & Kiran, S. (2015, November). Does naming therapy make ordering in a restaurant easier?: Impairment versus function in aphasia. Oral presentation at the 2015 American Speech Language-Hearing Association Convention, Denver, CO.
  • Meier, E., Kapse, K., & Kiran, S. (2015, October). Effective connectivity of the naming network in post-stroke chronic aphasia. Poster presentation at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Chicago, IL. Effective-connectivity-of-the-naming-network-in-chronic-aphasia_SNL-2015_FINAL.pdf
  • Kiran, S., Kapse, K., Johnson, J., Martin, K., & Meier, E. (2015, June). Task based reorganization of function after rehabilitation in post-stroke aphasia. Poster presentation at the 21st Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Honolulu, HI.
  • Kiran, S., Kapse, K., & Meier, E. (2015, June). Effective connectivity analysis of language networks in healthy adults and in chronic aphasia. Poster presentation at the 21st Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Honolulu, HI.
  • Kiran, S., Kapse, K., & Meier, E. (2015, June). Effective connectivity analysis of language networks in healthy adults and in chronic aphasia. Poster presentation at NeuroHAM, Boston, MA.
  • Meier, E., Lo, M., & Kiran, S. (2015, November). Understanding semantic and phonological processing deficits in adults with aphasia: Effects of category and typicality. Poster presentation at the 45th Annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Monterey, CA. CAC-2015-poster_E-Meier.pdf
  • Meier, E., & Weber-Fox, C. (2008, November). Maturation of neural indices for processing verb-agreement violations: Evidence from event-related potentials elicited in adolescents and adults. Poster presentation at the 2008 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Chicago, IL.
  • Meier, E., & Haskill, A. (2006, November). A detailed analysis of final cluster production skills in subgroups of preschool children with language impairment. Poster presentation at the 2006 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Miami, FL.
  • Meier, E., & Haskill, A. (2006). A detailed analysis of final cluster production skills in subgroups of preschool children with language impairment. Poster presentation at the 2006 Missouri Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Lake of the Ozarks, MO.