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KU team develops virtual reality therapy system that aids clients, therapists with real-time brain data
LAWRENCE — Clients seeking therapy need to feel comfortable in an environment that is conducive to examining mental health and with a counselor they can trust. Meeting those needs can be challenging in a remote therapy environment. A University of Kansas research team has developed a virtual therapy system that addresses many of the issues of remote counseling while also providing therapists with real-time data on brain activity.

Author asserts bilingualism no burden to resolving stuttering
LAWRENCE — There is no need for a speech therapist to restrict bilingual children to speaking a single language to help them overcome stuttering, according to a newly published paper by a University of Kansas researcher. According to Ana Paula Mumy, clinical assistant professor of speech-language-hearing, studies show that bilingual children are not burdened by code-switching between one language spoken inside their home and another spoken in the wider community. Thus, the outdated emphasis on removing or reducing the home language reflects a narrow-mindedness engendered by monolingual notions of how hard it is to speak another language.

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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
KU team develops virtual reality therapy system that aids clients, therapists with real-time brain data
LAWRENCE — Clients seeking therapy need to feel comfortable in an environment that is conducive to examining mental health and with a counselor they can trust. Meeting those needs can be challenging in a remote therapy environment. A University of Kansas research team has developed a virtual therapy system that addresses many of the issues of remote counseling while also providing therapists with real-time data on brain activity.
The EEG-enabled Virtual Therapy System has received a provisional patent and is being refined for wide market use. The system can take users to several virtual settings in which they meet with a counselor in the form of a VR wizard, Mother Earth figure or other avatars. And recent clinical trials show that users have believed the virtual settings address many of the problems of remote counseling.
The system originated from a personal experience of Christopher Tacca, a recent doctoral graduate of KU. Just as he was starting his studies, a tragedy occurred.
“I remember celebrating graduation with my family and friends and being nervous about coming to Kansas and the Midwest,” Tacca said. “About a week later, one of my friends took his life. I didn’t how to process it, but I felt like I wanted to do something that could help someone like him.”
A bioengineering student and Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellow, Tacca was working with adviser Elizabeth Friis, professor of mechanical engineering. Friis introduced him to Barbara Kerr, Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Counseling Psychology. Kerr had trained psychologists throughout her career and has used both virtual reality and EEG brain biofeedback in working with creative students and clients. The Virtual Therapy System originated from their discussions and was developed over the next few years as the team studied the technology and how it could be applied in psychological contexts.
“We really wanted to meet the needs of people who would use this. Much of that was from Dr. Kerr’s experience, but I also called a lot of therapists around Kansas to get their input and shadowed counselors doing what they do,” Tacca said. “We thought it was a cool idea, but we wanted it to be more than that. We wanted it to be useful and meaningful.”
The team recognized the need for a virtual setting conducive to therapy and discussing mental health, and current virtual therapy sometimes can come up short on providing that sense of security. The system also had to provide a “therapeutic alliance,” or way to build a trusting, meaningful relationship between the therapist and client.
The system features a choice of three virtual environments: a forest, log cabin or a simulation of Sigmund Freud’s office. The forest features settings of nature such as trees, waterfalls, ponds and even nature sounds, while the cabin features a fireplace and windows with scenic “outdoor” imagery. The office features large furniture, framed credentials and bookshelves.
“One of the things that makes it restorative and comfortable is if people have control over the environment,” Tacca said. “So people can say, ‘I want to sit by this tree or pond.’ Nature is a place that’s very restorative, and people go there all the time. Here, people can also control sound elements like hearing a nearby waterfall.”
The office was modeled after Freud’s famous office, which Tacca and fellow students viewed on trips to Vienna, Austria, and Leipzig, Germany, as part of Kerr’s history and systems of psychology course.
Academic literature in topics ranging from psychology and neuroscience to anthropology informed the development of avatars for counselors. Kaylie Ridgeway, Kerr’s doctoral student with a fine arts background, designed the avatars. Clients can choose which type of person they trust, and appropriate male, female and nonbinary counselors voice the characters in real time.
“We can think of therapists as having various personality features, and we’ve found from cultures around the world people tend to trust certain figures as healers,” Kerr said. “So we have a ‘wizard’ or avatar that is a wise elder and a mother figure. And we’re also developing a ‘trickster’ humorous counselor and fantasy animal characters, because virtual reality doesn’t restrict us to human forms, and young people especially are familiar and comfortable with these types of figures from gaming and online experiences. In addition, there will be diversity of ethnicity of avatars.”
The system also provides data that clients cannot obtain through traditional remote sessions. The Virtual Therapy System is EEG-equipped, which provides data on brain activity in real time. Clients wear a commercially available headband that places nodes on the forehead and monitors activity, like how a FitBit or similar device monitors physiological activity, Tacca said. That information can help therapists gauge how a client is feeling, if they are experiencing anxiety or are struggling to process or discuss certain topics. Those feelings are more easily detected in person and can be addressed but can be missed in remote settings.
“When Chris first came to me, I thought this was an ideal way to merge EEG technology with counseling work,” Kerr said. “We found it was very powerful for counselors to see the brainwaves of clients while working with them. It was a chance for our doctoral students to learn a new way of experiencing what we’ve known for a long time about what makes therapy work, live a restorative environment.”
The Virtual Therapy System has received a provisional patent, and the KU Center for Technology Commercialization is in the process of acquiring a full patent. The goal is to make the system commercially available to any counseling professional. The research team has also conducted a series of studies on the system’s effectiveness from the counselor’s point of view and its results with clients comparing their experiences with counseling virtually and remotely through the Zoom platform. Users rated the virtual system more highly than counseling via Zoom in effectiveness and other factors.
Tacca has presented his findings at the Virtual Reality and Healthcare Global Symposium and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Conference on Virtual Reality + 3D User Interfaces, and the studies are forthcoming in peer-reviewed journals as well.
The research team continues to refine the Virtual Therapy System. In the meantime, it has already proven effective in helping both clients and counselors in new ways.
“We always say the problem with virtual reality is you can’t see emotion,” Kerr said. “But our system makes that visible and solves a major problem of VR and allows deeper context for counselors to help clients.”

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
Author asserts bilingualism no burden to resolving stuttering
LAWRENCE – There is no need for a speech therapist to restrict bilingual children to speaking a single language to help them overcome stuttering, according to a new paper by a University of Kansas professor.
According to Ana Paula Mumy, clinical assistant professor of speech-language-hearing, studies show that bilingual children are not burdened by code-switching between one language spoken inside their home and another spoken in the wider community. Thus, the outdated emphasis on removing or reducing the home language reflects a narrow-mindedness engendered by monolingual notions of how hard it is to speak another language.
In “Culturally-Responsive Guidelines for Serving Families of Bilingual Children Who Stutter,” published in the latest edition of Perspectives of the ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) Interest Groups, Mumy writes that this notion is often evident in the “Demands and Capacities” model of speech therapy for young children who stutter, which emphasizes minimizing the former and maximizing the latter for each child.
“There’s this idea that you’re putting pressure on a child, or you’re creating this environment of demand, that bilingualism is confusing,” Mumy said. “I think for a person who has not had a bilingual experience, it’s easy to think, ‘Oh, sure, if you have two languages that you’re trying to process, of course it’s going to be harder.’ But that’s not true.
“That’s the thing that is so interesting about this myth. We are not wired to be monolingual. There is no evidence that supports that. So bilingual language acquisition should be viewed as just a normal process.
“Children are very capable of learning two languages. Even children with conditions that would impact their language growth — for example, children with Down syndrome or children who are autistic or with specific language impairment — the research shows the gaps are evident in both languages, but they’re still capable of learning both. And the key is there’s an inherent need in their environment for both.
“So if I’m in a community where both are used and needed, then they should be learning both, even if there’s a speech-language delay or difference. … There is evidence to support that we’re not placing this extra burden or an extra load on the child. Because, again, it’s a normal process.”
Mumy wrote, “This tutorial is not a systematic review or meta-analysis of the available literature,” noting that there is little of it: “There are merely two articles and two book chapters that are considered comprehensive reviews on stuttering in bilinguals.”
So, faced with a lack of evidence-based practices, Mumy argues for the “practice-based evidence” she has gleaned from her professional career and from episodes from her own trilingual life.
“When the research is limited, then you have to look at your clinical experience and expertise,” Mumy said. “And then the third thing is the patient’s preferences and values. … What does the family want and need?”
Mumy also urges therapists to beware of the unforeseen long-term consequences of attempting to force monolingualism in a young patient – which can include dividing a family. She writes of how, when her late father’s Alzheimer’s disease worsened in the last months of his life, he stopped speaking English and reverted strictly to his first language, Portuguese. If her mother had not insisted upon speaking Portuguese in their home 30 years prior, Mumy would have been isolated from her father in his final months and years.
Mumy concludes the tutorial by listing a set of 10 principles to follow when working with bilingual children:
1. Language is more than a means of communication.
2. Language, culture and identity are intricately connected and contribute to a person’s well-being and sense of belonging.
3. Culture cannot be expressed or handed down in any other way but language.
4. Bilingualism is a part of everyday life for nearly half of the human race. More often than not, it is a necessity rather than a commodity.
5. Bilingualism is an asset, not a liability.
6. Language choice is about relationship and connection. It is not a detached process or practice but rather a deeply relational and emotive process.
7. Bilingualism expands a person’s communities and opportunities.
8. Language choice should not carry negative consequences for a child. Caregivers should allow their child to use their language of choice when speaking.
9. The language of the home is valuable. Valuing the home language does not mean rejecting the community language.
10. Bilingualism should be a source of joy in the life of the bilingual child or adult.
Problems like forced monolingualism arise, Mumy said, “because everybody’s desperate for a solution … and that’s just a very narrow way to approach the complexity of this issue.”
Rather, she said, “What we should do is encourage families and equip them and help them in terms of how to continue promoting the home language … because they look to us. They want us to guide them in the process. They think we are the experts.”
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