Patricia A. Prelock, PhD, CCC-SLP

Patricia Prelock, PhD, is dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, professor of communication sciences and disorders, and professor of pediatrics in the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Prelock coordinates the parent-training programs designed for caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorders through the Vermont Interdisciplinary Leadership Education for Health Professionals (VT-ILEHP) program, a Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) federally funded interdisciplinary training grant. She also serves as project director for a State Improvement Grant to facilitate the implementation of a distance education graduate program to prepare speech-language pathologists in rural Vermont communities for serving children with communication disorders in the schools. She is an ASHA Fellow and a Board Recognized Specialist in Child Language, as well as a Hanen certified speech-language pathologist for It Takes Two to Talk and More Than Words.

Dr. Prelock received the 1998 Friends Award through the Vermont Parent Information Center and the first annual Autism Society of Vermont Excellence in Service Award in 2000. She also received the University of Vermont’s Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000. Dr. Prelock was named a University of Vermont Scholar in 2003 and was awarded the Puppets Choice Award through Kids on the Block of Vermont in 2010 for her work in autism.

While at the University of Vermont, Dr. Prelock has been awarded more than $9 million in state and federal funding to develop innovations in interdisciplinary training, to facilitate training in speech-language pathology, and to support her intervention work in autism spectrum disorders. She has more than 115 publications and 390 peer-reviewed and invited presentations in the areas of autism, collaboration, language assessment and intervention, and language learning disabilities.

Dr. Prelock earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kent State University, and her doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh.