Anita S. Halper (second from left) was awarded the Honors of the Academy in 2015 (pictured with, from left, Leora Cherney, Mary Boyle, and Stacie Raymer).
Anita S. Halper, 89, passed away on August 30, in Chicago, Illinois. She received her baccalaureate degree (1956) and her master’s degree in speech pathology (1959) from Northwestern University. In 1960, she founded the Department of Communication Disorders at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), which she developed into a model for other rehabilitation facilities and grew from a staff of one (herself) to more than 25 speech-language pathologists and audiologists. The Department of Communication Disorders was one of the first to routinely evaluate and treat patients with cognitive-communicative disorders following right hemisphere damage and traumatic brain injury.
Through her numerous books, book chapters, and presentations, she continuously shared her clinical expertise in these areas, as well as in the area of aphasia. Indeed, she co-developed one of the first clinical tools for assessing right hemisphere communication problems: the RIC Evaluation of Communication Problems in Right Hemisphere Dysfunction (RICE), which is widely used by SLPs across the country.
Following a hospital-wide reorganization in the mid-1990s, she transitioned to the RIC Academy and held the position of senior education program manager from 2004 until her retirement in 2019.
Throughout her career, she was an influential and involved rehabilitation clinician. She was a charter member of the Academy of Aphasia, serving as its treasurer from 1987 - 1999. She had a long history of service to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, and received the Honors of the Association in 2002. She was a member of the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences (ANCDS) since its inception, was board certified by ANCDS, served on its executive board, and received the Honors of ANCDS in 2015. She also held an academic position in Northwestern University’s Medical School as assistant professor of Clinical Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation from 1985 – 1991 and associate professor from 1991 until her retirement.
When she retired after 58 years of service from the RIC (now called the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab), she was honored with the creation of the Anita S. Halper Communication Sciences and Disorders Annual Lecture, which takes place each year during National Speech Language and Hearing Month.