Phonological Disorders in Children: Clinical Decision Making in Assessment and Intervention

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.

Karen E. Pollock, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of Alberta. She has taught graduate courses, conducted research, and published in the area of child phonology for almost 20 years. In addition to co-editing two books with Alan G. Kamhi and Joyce Harris on communication development/ disorders and literacy in African American children, she served as associate editor in the area of phonology for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research from 1995 to 1997 and is currently an editorial consultant for several scholarly professional journals. Her recent research interests include vowel errors in children with phonological disorders, phonological variation in southern and African American English dialects, and speech-language development in internationally adopted children.

Marc E. Fey, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, was emeritus professor for the Hearing and Speech Department at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He published numerous articles, chapters, and software programs on children’s speech and language development and disorders and wrote 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 (ASHA) publications board from 2003 to 2005. He received the Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications and the Honors of the Association from ASHA.

In Memory of Marc E. Fey

The field of communication sciences lost a remarkable leader when Marc Fey passed away on September 12, 2023. At Brookes, we will remember him as the dedicated Co-Series Editor of the Communication and Language Intervention (CLI) book series, which he helped direct and expand for many years. Marc was not only a series editor but also a volume editor/author. One of those titles, Treatment of Language Disorders in Children, now in its second edition and slated for a third, has become a classic text for speech-language pathologists, for its balanced examination of interventions for emerging communication and language as well as more advanced language and literacy. A strong supporter of evidence-based practice, Marc brought his passion for research and commitment to well-designed intervention studies to the selection process for the CLI series. Those books benefited from his keen editorial and writing skills. Our staff who had the pleasure of working with him will remember many enjoyable moments at CLI Board meetings and his collaborative, encouraging leadership. His legacy will live on in the volumes he helped to envision and create for the field, and the difference he made in the lives of so many children with speech and language disorders.

Adele W. Miccio, Ph.D. died in March 2009. Having completed her Ph.D. in speech and hearing sciences at Indiana University in Bloomington, she was a distinguished professor at the Pennsylvania State University since 1995. Her research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Education, focused on interventions for children with speech sound disorders and phonological development of bilingual children and children with chronic middle-ear infections. In 2002, she was a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at Harvard University, and in 2006, she was named Director of the Penn State Center for Language Science. A beloved and cherished colleague, Adele is greatly missed by all of us who had the privilege of knowing her.

Susan Rvachew, Ph.D. is a professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University. Her research focuses on the development of more effective interventions to treat speech sound disorders in children and prevent reading disability in this population. She is the author of more than 80 papers and two books on phonological development and disorders.

Ann A. Tyler, Ph.D. is Associate Dean in the College of Health and Human Services and Professor of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Western Michigan University. She is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). She has presented and published extensively in childhood speech sound disorders. Her research in the area of treatment efficacy has been supported by a variety of external funding sponsors. Dr. Tyler has served on numerous editorial boards and has served ASHA in a variety of roles.

A. Lynn Williams, Ph.D. is Associate Dean in the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences and a professor in the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at East Tennessee State University. Most of her research has involved clinical investigations of models of phonological treatment for children with severe to profound speech sound disorders. She developed a new model of phonological intervention called multiple oppositions that has been the basis of federally funded intervention studies by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she developed a phonological intervention software program, Sound Contrasts in Phonology (SCIP), that was funded by NIH. Dr. Williams served as associate editor of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools and most recently served as the associate editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Dr. Williams is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and served as ASHA Vice President for Academic Affairs in Speech-Language Pathology (2016–2018). She currently serves as ASHA’s 2020 President-Elect (2021 ASHA President).