Foundation designates UT professor a nursing scholar

A researcher in nursing at the University of Tennessee has been honored with an award that will support her research into the lives of children with special needs.

Susan Speraw, an associate professor in the UT College of Nursing, has been named the Southern Nursing Research Society Scholar by the American Nurses Foundation.

Speraw is the first UT faculty member to receive the award, which has been given to some 900 researchers in the program's 50-year history. She said she will use the money to fund an upcoming project, "What It's Like to Be Me: The Lived Experience of Children & Adolescents with Special Needs."

"My research seeks to understand -- from the perspective of children and adolescents -- the extraordinary life experience of having disabilities or special needs," Speraw said. "Little research has sought to explore children's own perceptions of health and illness.

"This handicaps nurses and other health-care providers in attempting to give a superior quality of care."

Speraw's recent research has focused on the availability of religious education in churches for children with special needs.

The American Nurses Foundation is the philanthropic organization associated with the American Nurses Association, the nation's largest nursing group.