I am a past Chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences and the University Senate. I am co-PI of UMD-REACH, a program designed to increase ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic diversity in the field of communication sciences and disorders by providing undergraduate students from underrepresented groups with research, mentoring, and professional development opportuities.
I helped found the UMD Infant & Child Studies Consortium and the University of Maryland Autism Research Consortium. I am also a member of the Center for the Comparative & Evolutionary Biology of Hearing and the Maryland Language Science Center. Within NACS, I regularly teach the Research Ethics course, and have previously served as the Director of Graduate Studies and chair of the admissions committee. In 2013, I was honored with the BSOS Outstanding Graduate Advisor award, and in 2020/2021 as a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. My research focuses on speech perception and language acquisition. More specifically, I am interested in how the brain recognizes words from fluent speech, especially in the context of noise, and how this ability changes with development. For more information on my research, please download my public-oriented research statement.
Although my lab focuses on adult and toddler speech perception, we also do work on attention/distractability, the impact of concussions on language, and dogs' ability to recognize and respond to human language. For more information, visit the websites for our labs: The Language Development & Perception Lab, the Brain Injury & Language Development Lab, and the Canine Language Perception Lab.
Degrees
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PhD
I regularly teach the NACS research ethics course.
My research focuses on speech perception and language acquisition. More specifically, I am interested in how the brain recognizes and learns words from fluent speech, especially in the context of noise, and how this ability changes with development.
Recent research has examined topics such as:
- infants' ability to recognize their name in the context of noise or poor signal quality;
- the effect of noise or signal degradation on children's ability to learn new words;
- the effects of lexical neighbors on children's and adult's word naming, both those who are typically developing and those who have word-finding difficulties or who stutter
- whether infant perceptual abilities and parental input predict later language development;
- children's ability to comprehend degraded speech, such as that produced by a cochlear-implant;
- the effect of sports-related concussions on children's language processing;
- whether dogs recognize their home language, and how well they recognize their name or commands in a noisy environment
We are committed to open science; we have created a free software system for testing young infants in listening studies, and have contributed databases to Talkbank and Peekbank.
You can download my public-oriented research statement here.
I am past chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences and the University Senate, and currently co-Chair the university's accreditation review. Within NACS, I have searched as the Director of Graduate Studies and chair of the admissions committee, as well as serving on the curriculum and executive committees.
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CampusServicePast Chair, Dept. of Hearing & Speech Sciences
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CampusServicePast-Chair, UMD Senate
Current Students
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Grad Advisee Profile
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Grad Advisee Profile
Former Students
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Student NameChris HeffnerCurrent PositionAsst. Professor, University of Buffalo
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Student NameAmritha MallikarjunCurrent PositionPostdoc Affiliate, Penn State Working Dog Lab
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Student NameGiovanna MoriniCurrent PositionAssociate Professor, University of Delaware
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Student NameMelissa StockbridgeCurrent PositionResearcher, Johns Hopkins
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Student NameBrittany JaekelCurrent PositionResearch Scientist, Starkey Hearing
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Student NameChristina Blomquist
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Student NameErika ExtonCurrent Positionpostdoc, Northwestern University
