Pediatric Test of Brain Injury™ (PTBI™)

Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, Sc.D., CCC-SLP, is the Brewer Smith Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, USA. She was affiliated with the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center and Boston University School of Medicine, USA for 32 years, was a Research Scientist at the National Center for Neurogenic Communication Disorders at The University of Arizona, USA, and a Research Professor at the University of North Carolina, USA. Dr. Helm-Estabrooks is board certified by the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorder (ANCDS). Her awards include American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and ANCDS Honors, and the Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award. She is an ASHA Fellow and has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, 7 books, 21 chapters, and 6 standardized tests. Gillian Hotz, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is the Co-director of the Pediatric Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Program; Director of Neurotrauma Outcome Research, Concussion, and WalkSafe Programs; and Associate Research Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA. Dr. Hotz is Principal Investigator on a variety of funded research projects for acute care and rehabilitation of children with traumatic brain injury and injury prevention. She has presented at local, national, and international conferences; has published numerous papers on the topic of traumatic brain injury; and is coauthor of the Brief Test of Head Injury (with Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, PRO-ED, 1991). Dr. Hotz is a member of a number of advisory groups, including the Florida Injury Prevention Advisory Council and the Sarah Jane Brain Project/The National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan. Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Professor, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Health and Human Services, 1903 West Michigan Avenue, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA. Dr. Nelson received her bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Wichita State University, USA. She is the author of Childhood Language Disorders in Context: Infancy Through Adolescence, Second Edition (1998 Allyn & Bacon), and Planning Individualized Speech and Language Intervention Programs, Second Edition (1989, PRO-ED), as well as numerous articles and chapters on classroom-based language intervention and related topics. Dr. Nelson began her professional career as a school clinician in Kansas and also served as a speech-language consultant specialist for Berrien County Intermediate School District in Michigan, USA. She has been a member of the faculty at Western Michigan University, USA since 1981. Dr. Nelson and her husband live on a lake in Three Rivers, Michigan, USA. They enjoy gardening, boating, and entertaining their children, grandchildren, and extended families on the lake. Elena Plante, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is Professor and Head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson, USA. She is a fellow both of The University of Arizona's College of Science and of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Her areas of research interest include language learning and assessment practices. Dr. Plante has been using neuroimaging to explore the brain bases of language and cognition for the last 2 decades. She has active national and international collaborations in the areas of neuroimaging, language, and learning.