Jillian Blevins, Gabrielle Howell Finish First at VSU Research Symposium

Jillian Blevins and Gabrielle Howell earned first place honors at Valdosta State University’s 2025 Graduate Student Research and Scholarship Symposium. They are pictured with Dr. Becky da Cruz, associate provost for graduate studies and research.

VALDOSTA — Jillian Blevins and Gabrielle Howell earned first place honors at Valdosta State University’s 2025 Graduate Student Research and Scholarship Symposium. It was an opportunity for both students to share their research with a wider audience, sharpen their presentation skills, receive valuable feedback, network with other student researchers, and build their reputations as emerging experts in their field of study.

Blevins and Howell’s award-winning research — “Consistency Among Comprehension Measures in Children with Dyslexia” — was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Carter, an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Certificate of Clinical Competence-credentialed speech-language pathologist and professor in VSU’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

According to their research abstract, “Dyslexia is a learning disability that is characterized by struggles in reading comprehension, or the ability for individuals to learn and understand information in written format. Assessments like the Gray Oral Reading Test and the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills are used to evaluate children with fluency disorders like dyslexia. The purpose of this study is to determine any overlap in criteria tested in different portions of the Gray Oral Reading Test and the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills by comparing scores, to determine if there are any correlations between aspects of literacy and reading comprehension. Assessment results from both tests were collected from eight children diagnosed with dyslexia to compare scores. Strong correlations from sections of the GORT-5 and subtests from the TILLS were found after the comparisons. Correlations close to one were determined to test for the same criterion.”

Blevins, of Waycross, Georgia, anticipates earning a Master of Education in Communication Disorders in December. She previously graduated from VSU with Magna Cum Laude honors and a Bachelor of Science in Education in Communication Disorders in May 2024. 

Howell, of Richmond Hill, Georgia, anticipates earning a Master of Education in Communication Disorders in December. She previously graduated from VSU with Magna Cum Laude honors and a Bachelor of Science in Education in Communication Disorders in May 2024. 

VSU is committed to providing a quality graduate learning environment, enabling advanced studies guided by graduate faculty with a passion for teaching, research, and service. Research is a key component in a large number of the more than 40 face-to-face, hybrid, and online graduate programs offered at the university.