Edward G. Conture
Edward Conture, professor and director of graduate studies at Vanderbilt University's Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, is internationally recognized for his significant and lasting influence through three decades of research, clinical service, and teaching/mentoring in childhood stuttering. He is a "rare academic, truly a hybrid of science, teaching, and clinical service" who "is able to move comfortably between the laboratory, classroom, and clinic, using his experiences in each to inform the entirety of his work," said Patricia M. Zebrowski of the University of Iowa.
Conture (BS, Emerson College; MA, Northwestern University; PhD, University of Iowa) spent 26 years at Syracuse University, including five years as Margaret O. Slocum Professor of Education, three years as acting chair, and two years as chair of the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department. At Vanderbilt since 1997, he has been a visiting clinician or researcher in Canada, Australia, and The Netherlands.
Conture's groundbreaking research on childhood stuttering, continuously funded by NIH and other organizations for more than three decades, has moved the discipline of stuttering research and practice from a strictly motor approach and philosophy to a language-based phenomena, altering the management protocols used with adults and children. "By pursuing research that incorporates psychological and psycholinguistic constructs, Dr. Conture has taken us beyond a simple motoric explanation for the disruption of speech fluency," noted Vanderbilt's Lee Ann Golper. Conture's work regarding the emotional contributions to childhood stuttering has helped make this area an issue worthy of legitimate empirical investigation.
A masterful clinician who has always insisted that his own job description include clinical work and supervision, Conture's clinical contributions "encompass more than 30 years of commitment to respecting the therapy traditions of the past while integrating the research findings of the present and keeping a finger on the pulse of intervention practices for the future," according to Fred H. Bess, chair of Vanderbilt's Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences. Conture introduced family-centered practice "long before 'family-centered practice' became a buzzword," Bess said.
As a teacher and mentor, "Dr. Conture has almost single-handedly launched the two most recent generations of doctoral-level teachers and researchers in the field," said Barry Guitar of the University of Vermont. Ellen M. Kelly of Vanderbilt noted that "Dr. Conture was solely responsible for my consideration and pursuit of a doctorate. I know that this story echoes through the halls of Syracuse and Vanderbilt universities. At a time when the shortage of doctoral-level academicians and researchers is critical, Dr. Conture continues to maintain a steady flow of PhD students, 'post-docs,' and clinicians in training."
Conture's work with NIH—as a reviewer, site visitor, study section member, and advisory council member—has helped to enhance funding in speech-language pathology. He received the Malcolm Fraser Foundation's Malcolm Fraser Award, the ASHFoundation's Frank R. Kleffner Clinical Career Award, the ASHA Special Interest Division 4 Leadership Recognition Award, the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association's Honors, and the University of Iowa's Distinguished Alumni Award. His textbook, Stuttering: Its Nature, Diagnosis, and Treatment, tops a list of more than 115 publications; his 300 worldwide presentations include keynote addresses at the World Congress on Fluency Disorders and the Oxford University Fluency Disorders Conference. His service to the profession includes involvement in the Stuttering Foundation of America, ASHA (many committees and associate editor of Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research), editor of the Journal of Fluency Disorders, and chair of the Examination Committee for the Specialty Board on Fluency Disorders.
Conture, Bess said, "is a true clinical researcher. He can address important clinical questions, and having been in the clinic, knows which questions to ask. His work has provided us with a scientific basis for our clinical practice. His extraordinary teaching skills have resulted in the education of numerous top-flight scholars and clinicians serving children who stutter."
Judith A. Cooper
As deputy director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Judith A. Cooper has had a fundamental impact on communication sciences and disorders (CSD) by directing and supporting research programs nationwide. In the process, she has helped hundreds of CSD researchers navigate the federal funding maze and launch research careers.
Cooper (BFA, Southern Methodist University; MS, Vanderbilt University; PhD, University of Washington) began her career as a speech-language pathologist in medical and clinical settings. She joined NIH's National Institute of Neurological, Communicative Disorders and Stroke as a health science administrator, and assumed a similar position at NIDCD when it was created in 1988. After several other positions at NIDCD, she became deputy director in 2004, responsible for overseeing the management of more than 1,000 national NIH grants and contracts annually in language, speech, voice, hearing, balance, smell, and taste.
Ehud Yairi, University of Illinois professor emeritus, said of Cooper: "No other individual has had as much influence during the past 25 years in charting new courses of basic and applied research for our field, supporting a multitude of active investigators, assuming a major advocacy role to the government and the public, and actively nurturing and encouraging new investigators."
Cooper—characterized by Yairi as the "grand guardian" of much of the ongoing research in speech and language—helps investigators keep their progress on course or change direction when indicated, initiate new studies, find solutions to crises, and identify additional funding. "Through her deep knowledge of the field, her untiring promotion of science and scientists, and her acute administrative skills, she has been a guiding light for researchers who seek funding support from NIDCD," said Ray Kent, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin.
Cooper is a gifted mentor who helps demystify the grant process for many initially discouraged young scientists. Julie Washington, University of Michigan associate research professor, said that Cooper "has been very accessible and open in sharing her knowledge about which funding mechanisms were available and appropriate at various stages of my career, and has been very supportive during the revision process. She helped me maintain optimism and focus during a process that can be very intimidating."
Cooper has also taken a leadership role in shaping national research policies in language, speech, and voice. Her direction at the highest level of NIH autism-related activities is reflected in her position as co-leader of the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism. She has likewise spearheaded efforts to promote research in aphasia, specific language impairment, stuttering, literacy and deafness, and molecular biology and genetics in voice, speech, and language. She also helps shape public policy as the CSD spokesperson before Congress and other bodies, conveying needs for research, services, and public information.
For many years, Cooper has worked to increase the involvement of minorities and individuals with disabilities in research by serving as the NIDCD coordinator of the Diversity Supplement Program. In addition, she has had a long-standing commitment to women's health issues, serving as the leader of an NIH seminar series that highlights these issues to the NIH community and beyond.
An ASHA Fellow, Cooper has received many honors: five NIH Awards of Merit, two NIDCD staff recognition awards, and three NIH Director's Awards.
James F. Battey, NIDCD director, said Cooper "has played a pivotal role in shaping the Institute's strategic plans for research on processes of voice, speech, and language. She oversees and administers a portfolio of literally hundreds of grants and contracts, and plays a central role in informing Congress and other agencies about progress resulting from NIDCD-supported research grants. She has championed new research initiatives and been a champion of NIDCD's efforts to bring diversity to the scientific research community."
John D. Durrant
John D. Durrant, professor and vice chair of communication science and disorders, professor of otolaryngology, and professor of rehabilitation science and technology at the University of Pittsburgh, is a researcher, scientist, clinician, and educator whose collaborations around the globe have earned him the unofficial title of "international ambassador of audiology."
Durrant (BFA, MA, Ohio University; PhD, Northwestern University) is internationally known and respected. According to Malcolm McNeil of the University of Pittsburgh, Durrant "maintains passion and intensity for exemplary science, unassailable standards of clinical care, rigorous education, and tenacious professional service."
He began his career at the Temple University School of Medicine as a professor of otorhinology and physiology and director of audiology and auditory research. "He originated our basic hearing science course at the undergraduate level," said Jean Lovrinic, then a professor in Temple's Department of Communication Science. "Because of the paucity of texts in the area, he recruited me to help him fill that void, and thus was Bases of Hearing Science born." Lawrence Feth of The Ohio State University called this text, culminating in three editions and translated into Japanese and Italian, the "stalwart of undergraduate education in many speech and hearing programs."
Durrant's prolific research "elegantly bridges the gap between basic science and clinical processes, and much of what we know and apply clinically in auditory electrophysiology" is based on Durrant's studies, said John Ferraro of the University of Kansas Medical Center. "There is no one I know whose research in audiology has the depth of scholarship and the breadth of topics investigated as John Durrant," McNeil said, noting his "productive record of extramural funding along with his sizable and continuous record of publications in the most relevant and prestigious journals."
Durrant has published more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals and more than 40 book chapters or invited conference proceedings. His research extends to the vestibular system, basic anatomic and physiologic mechanisms of audition, development of audiologic instrumentation, clinical measurements and treatment of hearing loss, and the generation and role of the cochlear summating potential (one of the sound-elicited potentials of the hearing organ).
A dedicated teacher, Durrant has served on numerous thesis and dissertation committees, and served as an advisor to international fellows from Egypt, Turkey, China, Brazil, Greece, and Hungary. His international reputation is enhanced by his many invited and contributed presentations at international meetings; his working relationship at the Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France; and his advisory role and collaboration with the International Center for Hearing and Speech in Kajetany, Poland.
These collaborations have helped "to open the doors for the creation of new knowledge and student exchange, doors whose existence were previously unknown," McNeil said, and are "coincident with his tireless work promoting and building international professional relationships."
Durrant's service to the profession includes associate editor of The International Journal of Audiology; vice chair of the International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group; co-chair of meetings of the International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group; and membership in or chair of several working groups of the American National Standards Institute, including those on allowable ambient noise levels for audiometric testing, calibration of bone-conduction transducers, and auditory evoked potential testing.
An ASHA Fellow, Durrant has served on or chaired various ASHA committees relating to audiology and international issues, and has contributed prolifically to the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders, International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group, Acoustical Society of America, and International Society of Audiology.
Describing Durrant as a "man of honor and integrity," Robert Burkard of the University at Buffalo said that Durrant has been "a productive scholar as well as a vocal defender—and critic—of the profession of audiology. His scholarship and service to the profession are exceptional."
Samuel G. Fletcher
Samuel G. Fletcher, adjunct research professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) and retired professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has applied his inventive mind to improving treatment outcomes for individuals with communication disorders through science and technology.
Fletcher (BS, Utah State University; MS, PhD, University of Utah) spent almost 45 years in research and academic positions, including a 20-year stint at UAB where he chaired the Department of Biocommunication and directed the Biocommunication Research Lab in the schools of medicine and dentistry. Earlier, he led the departments of speech pathology and audiology at both Utah State University and the University of New Mexico, where he began the development of two devices that have had a substantial impact on research and clinical practice in the professions.
Fletcher was "frustrated that physicians made decisions about velopharyngeal surgery based only on perceptual observations, and set about developing a tool to provide quantitative data on nasality," explained Christopher Dromey of BYU. Fletcher developed the nasometer, the leading instrument in the world for diagnosing and modifying abnormal nasal resonance among individuals with cleft palate, post-trauma injury of the palate, and nasal resonance disturbances associated with neural damage and disorders.
"Not content to leave the technology in its current state," Dromey said, "Fletcher continues to consult with colleagues in engineering and technology to refine and modify the design of this important clinical tool to make it more user-friendly while retaining its well-established validity."
Fletcher created his second device, the palatometer, in collaboration with colleagues in dentistry and biomedical engineering. The device helps children, such as those who are deaf, learn to speak. It is also used to study and help modify tongue placement related to a broad variety of other speech disorders. According to Doris Bradley of the University of Southern Mississippi, the instrument "has shortened the treatment time required and increased the accuracy of speech assessment." He holds several patents for these devices with more pending or in preparation.
Fletcher received research awards from the U.S. Public Health Service, Easter Seal Foundation, several branches of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation. David Daly, director of Daly Speech and Language Center in Farmington, Mich., is impressed by Fletcher's "quiet competence and how systematically he followed the scientific method. The profession benefited from his dedication to core research. He stayed with a topic and completed research studies until answers were found, and published the results so that other colleagues would benefit from his work. His research in oral physiology and his work in the areas of cleft palate, tongue thrust, articulation, and hearing impairment are well-known."
Fletcher has written five books, dozens of book chapters, and more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. He served on journal editorial boards and NIH research review committees on topics dealing with normal and abnormal speech and swallowing structure and function and on instrumental evaluation and treatment of speech pathologies.
Fletcher has served on a number of professional advisory committees and boards, including the Albuquerque Model Cities Diagnostic and Learning Center, Sertoma National Center for Communicative Disorders, ASHA Committee on Scientific Affairs, and American Cleft Palate Association.
Along with his wife, Barbara, Fletcher has extended his efforts overseas. They provided humanitarian service to individuals with speech disorders in Indonesia: Fletcher taught medical residents how to use the palatometer to help children improve their speech; Barbara taught dental technicians how to construct the custom hardware for the device. Fletcher was awarded a permanent visiting professorship at the University of Indonesia Medical Center in Jakarta.
"I wish that our new PhDs and other young scholars could begin their careers working with scientists like Dr. Fletcher," Daly said. "He is a true scholar, speech and hearing scientist, and clinical researcher."
Larry E. Humes
Larry E. Humes, professor of speech and hearing sciences at Indiana University, has made significant contributions to audiology through his groundbreaking research, professional leadership, and mentoring of students who have become leaders in the field.
Humes (BS, Purdue University; MA, Central Michigan University; PhD, Northwestern University), is "the most influential research audiologist of the last 25 years," according to Indiana professors Judith Gierut and Phil Connell. Humes has attracted extramural research funding from the National Institutes of Health (continuously since 1984), the National Science Foundation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and industry.
"Larry's contributions to research are absolutely stellar," said Sandra Gordon-Salant of the University of Maryland, referring to his more than 140 publications and more than 200 presentations. His research interests comprise an integrated attempt to delineate the capacity of normal-hearing listeners to process all aspects of sound, and to model the malfunction of selected mechanisms in individuals with hearing loss, especially older adults.
He is the co-author, with Fred Bess, of Audiology: The Fundamentals, which is in its fourth edition (in 2008) and has been translated into two other languages. He is the co-author of a new textbook, also with Bess, Audiology and Communication Disorders: An Overview.
Humes has served on ASHA's Publication Board and in editorial roles with many leading audiology journals, including Ear and Hearing; Journal of the American Academy of Audiology; and Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. For the latter, he served two terms as an associate editor and one as editor for hearing. In these roles, "he has shaped and guided the quality of research published in audiology and has helped elevate its merit as a scientific discipline," Gierut and Connell noted.
While at Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine (1978–1986), Humes helped grow the PhD program in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, tripling the applicant pool. Indiana University's program in speech and hearing sciences has also enjoyed considerable growth and success under Humes' direction. Many of his former students have become major contributors to audiology, a measure of Humes' success as a teacher and mentor.
His excellence in research and administration led to appointments as an advisor or consultant to two NIH institutes (Aging, and Deafness and Other Communication Disorders), the Veterans Administration, the National Research Council, and the National Academies/Institute of Medicine. In these capacities, Humes has helped steer national policy on hearing and hearing loss issues.
Humes values highly the dissemination of new information to professional peers, demonstrated by his membership on convention organizing committees for ASHA, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Academy of Audiology, and the American Auditory Society. He also developed and oversees an international research conference on aging and speech communication held every two years.
He was named a research fellow at institutions in West Germany and New Zealand, and is a fellow of the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA). "Humes used these fellowships to exchange ideas with international scholars," Gierut and Connell said, "and his influence on the practice of hearing rehabilitation has been realized around the globe."
Humes, an ASHA Fellow, has received many other awards recognizing his contributions to rehabilitative audiology, including the Editor's Awards for the article of highest merit from the American Journal of Audiology and from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research; Central Michigan University's Outstanding Alumni Researcher in Audiology; and the Distinguished Service Award from the Tennessee Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
"The impact that Larry has had as a faculty member reaches far beyond the campus in Bloomington," said Lauren Christensen, a former student now vice president for research and development of GN ReSound Group. "His research has influenced the field of audiology and the patients we serve, and he has influenced the students that he has mentored throughout his career."
Charlena M. Seymour
Charlena M. Seymour, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA), has made an indelible impact on communication sciences and disorders through her impressive work as an exemplary leader and administrator, scholar-researcher-mentor, and staunch advocate for diversity issues.
Seymour (BFA, Howard University; MA, PhD, Ohio State University) began her faculty career at UMA in the Department of Communication Disorders (CD). She was director of the UMA Communication Disorders Clinic; CD graduate program director; and department chair for eight years. She was appointed dean of the UMA Graduate School, and then served as interim provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs until she was appointed to the permanent position in 2004 following a nationwide search.
Through her meteoric progression to top-ranking academic positions, Seymour has remained dedicated and actively involved in her profession, focusing on issues of academic standards, diversity, leadership, and mentoring.
While graduate school dean, Seymour served as ASHA president in 1997. As president-elect, she actively and successfully solicited members from traditionally under-represented populations to serve on ASHA committees and boards. She also served as vice president for quality of service, and on the Council on Professional Standards in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Educational Standards Board, and Committee on the Status of Women. In these positions, "she established a reputation for her commitment to the conduct of ethical behavior," said Sandra Holley of Southern Connecticut State University. "She established protocols and case studies for resolving ethical dilemmas, promoted total quality management in ASHA preferred practice patterns, and helped write language for inclusion of diversity in standards for academic programs."
Seymour's "creativity and problem-solving abilities have permanently changed the university," said Sandra Peterson of UMA. "I have no doubt that the product of her vision for institutional change will also influence the entire country as models developed here are disseminated to other institutions." Her effectiveness is exemplified by her successful grantsmanship; she "devises creative ways of tackling complex professional and institutional issues and convincing funding agencies to partner with her in addressing problems of national import," Holley said, noting a recent $12 million, multi-year, renewable National Science Foundation grant to recruit and retain under-represented minorities in graduate-level science, mathematics, and engineering.
Seymour also continues to pursue scholarship. She served as creative editor of the Communication Disorders Textbook series and co-editor of the award-winning Introduction to Communication Disorders: A Multicultural Approach; has delivered more than 150 presentations in national and international forums; and has published in national and international journals.
Self-described as "sensitive to issues and problems of being different," Seymour has worked to find solutions to help academicians resolve issues of cultural intolerance, and has consistently defended diversity through her research about minority children and by mentoring students and faculty. At UMA, she has promoted the recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty and the enhancement of professional opportunities for women. She spearheaded the creation of the Mutual Mentoring Program, a $400,000 project sponsored by the Mellon Foundation.
An ASHA Fellow, Seymour received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Howard University School of Communication; Honors of the Massachusetts Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association; and the Harvard Foundation Medal of Recognition for Inter-Cultural and Race Relations. She was the Cecil and Ida Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University, and has led three delegations of ASHA members and their families to South Africa, China, and Australia.
Gilbert Herer, ASHA past president and director emeritus of the Children's Hearing and Speech Center at the Children's National Medical Center, described Seymour as the "quintessential exemplar of professional excellence. She set the highest expectations for herself as an SLP, professor, author, and role model and mentor for students, and by far has exceeded those expectations."
Howard C. Shane
Howard C. Shane, director of the Center for Communication Enhancement (CCE) at Children's Hospital, Boston, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, is a pioneer in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) who has developed equipment, clinical tools, symbol sets, speech-generating devices, an AAC-based telephone, and many software programs that enhance communication ability for individuals with severe communication impairments.
Shane was "computer-savvy and applying computer technology in communication disorders when most of us were still using white-out," said John Rosenbek of the University of Florida. Shane's many awards for technological innovation include the prestigious Goldenson Award from United Cerebral Palsy and the Pioneer Award from the Council for Exceptional Children.
Shane (BA, MA, University of Massachusetts; PhD, Syracuse University) has a lifelong commitment to individuals with severe and profound disabilities that includes "every aspect of treatment, study, research, advocacy, and development to improve and enhance the communication skills of children and adults with severe communication impairments," said Dale Metz of the State University of New York, Geneseo. "His innovative clinical insight, unyielding professionalism, rigorous research practices, administrative prowess, exemplary teaching skills, and award-winning product design have set a standard of achievement matched by few."
Shane is the supervisor of more than 50 SLPs and audiologists while maintaining a successful clinical practice and an active research, development, and teaching career. He is also the founder of Children's Hospital, Boston's Autism Language Program, renowned for its cutting-edge treatment and research on autism spectrum disorders. Under his direction, the CEE offers one of the most complete and comprehensive communication evaluation and treatment programs in the country for individuals with severe speech, language, and other developmental and acquired disabilities.
Shane's research promotes procedures and measures that advance the study and practice of communication interventions. He is a principal investigator in the federal Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Communication Enhancement, and conducts RERC-supported research and development on technology for persons on the autism spectrum.
His rigorous experimental methodology to assess the value of therapeutic interventions provided evidence that facilitated communication—once promoted as best practice—is an "ideomotor response" rather than a valid clinical tool. Joseph R. Duffy of the Mayo Clinic said that Shane's meticulous validation methods and standards "could be viewed as a building block for the current emphasis on evidence-based practice." Rosenbek added that Shane has "never been swept along by fads and testimonials. He knows lives are vulnerable to the abuse that can come with 'the next great thing.' Thus he has dedicated a career to developing the evidence."
Shane has given invited presentations at hundreds of conferences and meetings around the world, and has published dozens of reports, books, and articles. He has served on the editorial boards of several major journals, including American Journal of Speech-
Language Pathology; Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools; and Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
An ASHA Fellow, Shane chaired ASHA's first AAC committee, co-authored ASHA's first position statement on AAC, and was a major contributor to the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research consensus papers on AAC intervention. Together, these documents established AAC as a sound clinical science and research-based field of practice. His "innovative clinical work, as well as his presentations, publications, and regional and national committee work and service played a critical role in establishing AAC as an important subspecialty in our profession," Duffy said.
Shane's clinical work and leadership have shaped and developed technologies, methods, and standards for AAC that make it "increasingly likely that people without the ability to speak can nonetheless communicate," Duffy said. "He belongs on the short list of people recognized for jump-starting and guiding AAC and its service to people with communication disorders."
Carol Westby
Carol Westby, a language consultant and researcher, has altered the course of clinical thinking about children with language-learning difficulties through research on children whose struggles to speak, read, and write are impeded by a combination of neurobiological and sociocultural factors.
Westby (BA, Geneva College; MA, PhD, University of Iowa) has held positions at several universities, including Albany State University, Wichita State University, and University of New Mexico (UNM), and has been a visiting professor at Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia) and Brigham Young University. She has excelled as the principle investigator of major federal and state training grants and field demonstration projects for more than 25 years. "Carol Westby is recognized nationally and internationally for innovative and insightful scholarly and clinical work," said Joel Stark of Queens College. She has written more than 30 book chapters and 40 journal articles, and made more than 400 presentations throughout the world.
Geraldine Wallach of California State University, Long Beach, said Westby "has always been on the cutting edge of the field." One of Westby's earliest articles, on assessing cognitive and language abilities through play, is considered a classic, as is her article on culture in education and the instruction of students with language-learning disabilities—one of the first to refocus attention on the critical importance of sociocultural variation of individual children. The "Westby Play Scale" continues to provide important guidelines for clinical assessment.
Her subsequent writings on assessing narrative competence, ethnographic interviewing, development of narrative language abilities, and development of oral-literate language differences remain clinically relevant more than 20 years later. A chapter on multicultural issues in assessment is "one of the most readable, integrated, and practical contributions in this area," Stark said. Westby is also recognized for publications on children's transition from spoken to written language, autism, attention deficit disorder, executive function, learning disabilities, scientific literacy, and the effect of trauma and abuse on learning. She was one of the first scholars in the discipline to stress the importance of literacy and its inclusion within the scope of practice of SLPs.
Westby's hallmark is the "ability to synthesize a large body of cross-disciplinary literature and apply this knowledge in developing a useful clinical tool," said Elaine Silliman of the University of South Florida. "I know of no other individual in our discipline who can translate in-depth scientific knowledge across multiple domains into theoretically well-grounded clinical practice frameworks."
Cheryl Scott of Rush University Medical Center described Westby as "hands-on. Not only has she educated scores of students and professionals, but she has spent as much time observing and interacting directly with the children and families she studies and champions. Her long record of competitive funding is a testimony to her extraordinary skills in language and literacy program design, implementation, and evaluation."
Alan Kamhi of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, characterized Westby as "one of the most sought-after presenters in our field, always one step ahead of the pack, leading the field into new areas." Nickola Wolf Nelson of Western Michigan University said, "I have been present when Carol's ability to communicate with an audience has led to standing ovations."
An ASHA Fellow, Westby received ASHA's 2001 Award for Special Contributions in Multicultural Affairs; several awards from the UNM National Student Speech Language Hearing Association; Honors from the New Mexico Speech-Language-Hearing Association; and two ASHA clinical achievement awards. She was the invited keynote speaker for the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics in 2004.
Westby has been described by Scott as "a national treasure," and by Silliman as "a vigorous advocate, not only for children who lack a voice, but also for prospective undergraduate and graduate students from cultural/linguistic minority groups whose voice are needed to keep the profession viable in the 21st century."
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