Boys Town Center for Childhood Deafness, Language and Learning

10/16/2026

The masterminds behind getting Pathways to Progress together!

10/16/2026

Second annual Pathways to Progress. Let’s go!

09/23/2026

Congratulations Dr. Kueser!

Congratulations to Justin Kueser, Ph.D., director of the Emerging Language Knowledge (ELK) Lab, on receiving the 2026 Early Career Contributions in Research Award from The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
This prestigious honor recognizes Dr. Kueser’s significant contributions to understanding developmental language disorder and late talking in children. Through his research, he is helping shape a future where more children receive the support they need to develop strong communication skills. We're proud to celebrate this well-deserved recognition and the impact his work continues to make for children and families.

09/18/2026

Save the Dates for the next Pediatric Audiology Translational (PAT) Research Conference! With Keynote speaker, Dr. Lisa S. Davidson from Washington University in St. Louis.

June 4-5, 2027

Boys Town National Research Hospital
Washington University in St. Louis

09/16/2026

One month to go!
Join us for the Pathways to Progress Conference, happening October 16 to 17, 2026.
Hear from leading speech and language researchers and gain practical, evidence-based strategies you can apply immediately in your work. Earn CEUs while advancing your impact.
Sign up via the 🔗 in our comments.

07/23/2026

Dr. Hope Lancaster, director of the Etiologies of Language and Literacy Laboratory, traveled to Amsterdam, Netherlands to present at the 2026 Annual Meeting of Behavioral Genetics Association.

With her colleagues, Drs. Fisher and Eising, they presented a poster on how self-reported communication skills are associated in adults in the Dutch Lifelines cohort.

During her trip, Dr. Lancaster visited her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics to discuss more science - from the genetics of synesthesia and music to expanding current collaborations for future projects.

07/09/2026

Check out what our friends in the Boys Town Center for Hearing Research are up to. These scientists are making strides in helping children get the help they need as early as possible.

Researchers at Boys Town have developed an assessment tool for measuring the early sounds that babies and toddlers make. It was designed to catch delays in speech development at a young age.

06/30/2026

Clinical Vestibular Lab

06/26/2026

Late talkers are children who use less words than other children their age. Caregivers or parents usually find out their child is a late talker around 18 to 24 months of age, when the child isn’t saying many words or putting together short phrases.

Right now, there’s no way to predict which child will catch up and who will need more support.

Help us learn how to support other parents or caregivers of late talkers.

Sign up at https://latetalkersproject-boystown.timetap.com/ #/

06/09/2026

There's so much information! How do we know what's real?

Our very own Emma Kate Thome, PhD, CCC-SLP of the Emerging Language Knowledge Lab sat down with Speech Pathology Australia to discuss what pseudoscience is and why it's so appealing.

A new episode of is out now.

Pseudoscientific approaches can be surprisingly appealing, even in a profession grounded in evidence-based practice.
In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr Emma Kate Thome from Boys Town National Research Hospital (USA) about how to identify and manage pseudoscientific practices in speech pathology.

Dr Thome explores:
• what pseudoscience looks like in practice
• why it can appeal to both clinicians and the people they support
• the risks it poses to safe, effective and evidence-based care.

This episode offers valuable insights for speech pathologists looking to strengthen their critical thinking and clinical decision-making.

🎧 Listen now: https://bit.ly/4vk8JyZ