My background is as a speech-language pathologist.  I received both my undegraduate and graduate degrees in this area from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario from 1979 to 1985.

Despite my clinical training, I have always considered myself more of an educator than a clinician.  This strongly influenced my work at the Mantioba School for the Deaf, where I implemented classroom-based teaching of communication skills rather than pull-out therapy sessions.  I left the Manitoba School for the Deaf in 1992 to be part of a research project affiliated with Sign Talk Children's Centre.  Sign Talk is a bilingual daycare established by the Deaf community in Winnipeg and incorporates the use of American Sign Language and English.  The project was funded by Health and Welfare Canada and involved studying the children's development of both languages over a three-year period.

The work on the Sign Talk project prompted me to pursue a doctorate degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Manitoba so I could continue to research language development in Deaf children and its relation to literacy skills.  My doctoral dissertation was titled, "Literacy Development in Deaf Students: Case Studies in Bilingual Teaching and Learning" and won the dissertation of the year honours from the Canadian Association of Educational Psychology in 1999.  

Since that time I have recieved several internal and federal grants to continue my research in the area of Bilingual Deaf Education with a particular emphasis on language acquisition and literacy development.  I have presented numerous workshops for parents and teachers, as well as formal papers at national and international conferences.

Currently I am a professor at the University of Manitoba and teach primarily in the the area of inclusive special education and qualitative research methodology.  I believe passionately in the need for all students to realize their potential through the development of language and literacy. 


Curriculum Vitae
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