At the:

University of North Dakota/Minnesota State University-Moorhead Spring Symposium

Alerus Center Grand Forks, ND      March 27 –28, 2008

Presented by:

Acting Director, Associate Professor
Graduate Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders
MGH Institute of Health Professions
Boston, MA  02129-4557

Working clinicians may find it difficult to keep current with some of the latest information on childhood speech disorders. This two-day presentation is an articulation/phonology update on some old themes, with information from the contemporary research literature interpreted, summarized, and explained as it relates to clinical practice. The topics addressed will be:

1. Understanding how to use research evidence to guide practice;
2. The uses and misuses of developmental articulation norms;
3. Valid speech discrimination/perception testing and training;
4. Current uses of speech sound stimulability and how it can be used as a dynamic assessment tool;
5. Moving beyond phonological processes to describe speech-sound problems;
6. Questioning the use of non-speech oral-motor exercises to change speech-sound problems;
7. The controversies surrounding childhood apraxia of speech, including assessment and treatment; 
8. Issues in treatment efficacy;
9. Selection of treatment targets;
10. Articulation vs. phonological treatment approaches;
11. How to decide which assessment and treatments options to select.

This will be a clinical presentation, using the current research literature to support evidence-based clinical practice. The format will primarily be lectures on a topic, followed by time allotted for audience questions, comments, summaries and discovery.

Gregory L. Lof, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is an Associate Professor and the Acting Director at the Graduate Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, an academic affiliate of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994 and his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. 

His research, teaching and clinical interests primarily are with children with articulation/ phonological disorders. Dr. Lof was the 2004 topic coordinator for phonology for the ASHA convention and has served on the 1995, 1998, 2002, and 2007 ASHA Convention Program Committee for phonology. He is or has been an editorial consultant for the journals Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Contemporary Issues in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. He currently is a member on ASHA’s newly formed Center for Evidence-Based Practice in Communication Disorders that is conducting evidence-based systematic reviews of oral motor exercises. 

Dr. Lof has published 13 articles, primarily on childhood speech sound disorders. He has presented over 30 peer-reviewed and 28 invited presentations/workshops at ASHA conventions, at local universities, in school districts, and at state association conventions.