Krista Wilkinson

Associate Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders

Krista Wilkinson is a prolific and innovative researcher in the field of developmental psychology, particularly in the area of language development, and has notably received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the last 10 years. Her current projects include a study of vocabulary acquisition in children with developmental disabilities and looking at whether talking “like a girl” affects how someone responds to the speaker. She also has two proposals pending with the NIH centered on augmentative communication.

“As speech-pathology moves toward a more evidence-based practice, there is a need for research to support the techniques being used by clinicians.” To this end, Krista requires students enrolled in her course on language disorders in preschool children to conduct research and present posters of their findings. Several of these posters have been presented at national American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) conferences.

Developmental psychology and language development go hand in hand with speech-language pathology, and Krista’s work consistently proves to be relevant and valuable, both to the field in general and to her students preparing to become clinicians.