Speech & Language Development & Intervention in Down Syndrome & Fragile X Syndrome

Steven F. Warren, Ph.D., Professor, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences and Disorders, Dole Human Development Center, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, #3045, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 Dr. Steven Warren's research has focused on communication and language development and intervention. Working with various colleagues, Dr. Warren has contributed to the creation of pre-linguistic and milieu intervention approaches. Much of his research has focused on the effect of these intervention approaches and on the role of parenting on moderating the impact of developmental disorders, such as Down syndrome and fragile X Syndrome. Marc E. Fey, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a professor in the Hearing and Speech Department at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He has published numerous articles, chapters, and software programs on children's speech and language development and disorders and has written and edited three books on child-language intervention. He was editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology from 1996 to 1998 and chair of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association's publications board from 2003 to 2005. He holds the Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications and the Honors of the Association from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Ronald B. Gillam, Ph.D., Raymond L. and Eloise H. Lillywhite Professor, Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University, 1000 Old Main Hill, Logan, Utah 84322 Dr. Gillam's research, which has been funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the U.S. Department of Education, primarily concerns information processing, language assessment, and language intervention with school-age children with language impairments. Dr. Gillam has been the associate editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (1996-1999) and the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (2001-2004; 2010- 2013). In addition to publishing more than 130 articles and book chapters, Ron has published three tests and two other books--Memory and Language Impairment in Children and Adults (Aspen, 1988) and Communication Sciences and Disorders: From Science to Clinical Practice (co-edited with Thomas Marquardt & Fredrick Martin; Singular, 2000; Jones & Bartlett, 2010, 2015). Dr. Gillam's teaching and research awards include ASHA Fellow, the Hayden Williams Fellowship at Curtin University in Western Australia, and the Robins Award for the outstanding researcher at Utah State University. Alan G. Kamhi, Ph.D., is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at Northern Illinois University. Since the mid-1970s, he has conducted research on many aspects of developmental speech, language, and reading disorders. He has written several books with Hugh Catts on the connections between language and reading disabilities as well as two books with Karen E. Pollock and Joyce Harris on communication development and disorders in African American speakers. His current research focuses on how to use research and reason to make clinical decisions in the treatment of children with speech, language, and literacy problems. He began a 3-year term as the Language Editor for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research in January 2004 and served as Editor of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools from 1986 to 1992. James Law, Ph.D., Professor of Speech and Language Science, Institute of Health and Society, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Victoria Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NEI 7RU, United Kingdom James Law graduated with a degree in linguistics before qualifying as a speech and language therapist. His principal research interests are child language and language learning diffi culties, evidence-based practice and intervention, and mapping longitudinal outcomes for children with language diffi culties. He has had a wide range of research funding, most recently as a principal investigator on the AGBP1.5m Better Communication Research Programme in the United Kingdom and the Centre for Research Excellence in Child Language in Victoria, Australia. Rose A. Sevcik, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, Georgia 30302 Dr. Sevcik is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Developmental Psychology Doctoral Program. She is the founding co-director of the university's Area of Focus: Research on Challenges to Acquiring Language and Literacy and a member of the Center for Research on Atypical Development and Learning (CRADL). She has made significant contributions to the field of developmental and learning disabilities and language and reading intervention research through more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, and books and numerous presentations at national and international conferences. She has been an investigator on 12 federally funded projects (NIH, IES) with a long history of working with schools. Dr. Sevcik is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the International Society of Augmentative and Alternative Communication. She also is a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and past President of its Communication Disorders Division. A member of the National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities, she is also on the Board of Directors for the United States Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Donna J. Thal, Ph.D., holds a master of science degree in speech pathology and audiology from Brooklyn College and a doctorate in speech and hearing sciences from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research in Language at UCSD, an assistant professor at Hofstra University, and an assistant professor at Queens College of CUNY. Dr. Thal is a developmental psycholinguist and a certified and licensed speech-language pathologist who has conducted research in a number of areas, including normal and disordered development of language and cognition, children with focal brain injury, and children with delayed onset of language. She has also carried out studies of language development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers. Her most recent work focuses on early identification of risk for clinically significant language impairment and is funded by a grant from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders (NIDCD), within the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Thal is an editorial consultant for language for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. She was the California State nominee for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation Outstanding Clinical Achievement Award in 1996, received the Monty Distinguished Faculty Award from SDSU 1998 and the Albert W. Johnson Research Lecturer Award from SDSU in 1999, and was the Wang Family Excellence Award nominee from SDSU in 2000. She served a 4-year term on the Communicative Disorders Review Committee for the NIDCD from 1998 to 2002. Dr. Thal is a co-author of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Dr. van Kleeck's research focuses on language and emerging literacy skills in children who are language impaired as well as the broader group of children who are at risk academically. Some specific areas of interests include (a) parentsa (TM) language socialization processes in the home that provide their young children with foundations for later literacy and academic success, and (b) issues related to language assessment in the preschool population. Her most recent work focuses on what she refers to as the academic talk register in preschoolers, and ita (TM)s importance to later academic achievement. Dr. van Kleecka (TM)s previous publications include several edited books, nearly 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 25 book chapters. She has given several hundred invited and peer-reviewed presentations nationally and internationally. Susan Ellis Weismer, Ph.D., Oros-Bascom Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Associate Dean for Research, College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53705 Susan Ellis Weismer is Oros-Bascom Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Principal Investigator at the Waisman Center. Her program of research focuses on understanding the developmental course and mechanisms underlying language acquisition in late talkers, specific language impairment, and autism spectrum disorders. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for more than 25 years. Donald B. Bailey, Jr., Ph.D., is Distinguished Fellow at RTI International. He is internationally known as an expert on young children with disabilities. For 27 years, he was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor and, for 14 years, director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Dr. Bailey has addressed a variety of issues in his research and publications related to early intervention of children with disabilities and their families, with a particular focus on family support, inclusion, early identification, and fragile X syndrome. He has an extensive record of publications, with more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books on a wide variety of topics related to early education, early intervention, disability, and family support. Jon F. Miller, Ph.D., is Director of the Language Analysis Laboratory at The Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published extensively in the areas of child language development and disorders, language assessment, and language intervention. In addition, he has been investigating early language development in children with Down syndrome in a longitudinal research project funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1988. Nancy C. Brady, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Speech Language Hearing Sciences and Disorders, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 Dr. Nancy Brady conducts research on early language and communication development in children and adults with severe disabilities, including individuals with autism, fragile x syndrome and deaf-blindness. Her research focuses on stages of prelinguistic development, assessing communication, teaching beginning AAC, and pragmatic aspects of early communication. Shelley L. Bredin-Oja, Ph.D., Associate Researcher, Institute for Life Span Studies, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Room 1052, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 Shelley L. Bredin-Oja is an associate researcher in the Bureau of Child Research at the University of Kansas. Her clinical expertise is serving families and toddlers/preschoolers with communication delays. Her research interests include the efficacy and effectiveness of language interventions and grammar development in young children. Dr. Carol Stoel-Gammon is Professor Emerita in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. She received her doctoral degree in Linguistics from Stanford University, and has taught, mentored and carried out research in the area of phonological development and disorders for many years. Her book Normal and Disordered Phonology in Children, co-authored with Carla Dunn was published in 1985. Her research interests focus on prelinguistic vocal development and early phonological development in children who are typically developing, and speech development of children with autism, cleft palate, Down syndrome, Fragile X, childhood apraxia of speech, children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, and late talkers. Dr. Stoel-Gammon as served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, and the Journal of Child Language.