Aerial of the Fraser Hall roof at sunrise

Child Language Doctoral Program

The University of Kansas' long-standing interdisciplinary doctoral program has a legacy of preparing researchers in child language and language impairments in a way that bridges knowledge of language acquisition, children’s language impairments, developmental psychology, and linguistics.

What We Do

- Empirical methods and theoretical frameworks
- Accurate description and documentation of children’s language acquisition
- Identification of symptoms of impairments
Students in class

Who We Are

A diverse community of dedicated scientists with backgrounds in either behavioral phenotyping/language acquisition or molecular genetics
Erin Andres, Hashim Raza, Mabel Rice in lab

Leadership

Dr. Mabel L. Rice is a Distinguished Professor, Director of the Child Language Doctoral Program, and Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing. In addition, she is affiliated with the interdisciplinary doctoral program in Neuroscience. Her research focuses on children’s language and children with language impairments, especially those with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). In addition, she has collaborated in studies of twin children, children with or exposed to HIV, public health research in Australia and Norway, and children’s television programing. She has also collaborated in the development of app-based language assessments and electronic reading instructional devices. She has published and/or edited 12 books, 38 chapters, 150 research papers, and one test of children’s morphosyntax. Her research has been continuously externally funded by NIH and/or the Department of Education for more than 30 years. 

Dr. Hashim Raza is an Assistant Professor and joins us from the Genetics research labs of the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)/NIH, where he worked in the lab of Dr. Dennis Drayna on the genetics of stuttering. Dr. Raza found several new stuttering loci and recently published a new stuttering gene, AP4E1. He is extending his genetics studies to children with language impairments.