Office Hours: Tues/Wed/Thurs by appointment.

Degrees: Ph.D., Language and Communicative Disorders (joint program, University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2002); M.A., Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences (Temple University, 1992); B.A., Latin-American Studies (Smith College, 1985)

Areas of Expertise

Early language development (typical and atypical) in bilingual (Spanish-English) children; multicultural issues in language learning; nonlinguistic factors in language development.

Professional Background Highlights

Dr. Barbara Conboy is a Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, coordinator of the Specialty Certificate in Bilingual Speech-Language Pathology: Spanish Language Focus and current director of the interdisciplinary undergraduate program in Latin American Studies. Dr. Conboy is an ASHA-certified speech-language pathologist with specialty training in early language and bilingualism and has professional experience working in public schools, Head Start programs, community and university clinics, hospitals, and private practice, where she has focused on improving language services to young children from bilingual and non-English-speaking backgrounds. In her research, she has used a combination of behavioral-experimental, observational, parent-report, and event-related brain potential (ERP) methods to study linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive factors in early language learning and processing. Her research has focused on dual-language learners (simultaneous and sequential bilingual learners) of Spanish and English in the U.S. and of Spanish and Kaqchikel Mayan in Guatemala, and monolingual Spanish-learning infants and young children in Mexico and Guatemala. Since 2011, she has taught an interdisciplinary mixed undergraduate/graduate May term travel course in Guatemala. She has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on her work with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children, and co-authored the Spanish version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, a widely used parent report questionnaire for measuring language skills in infants and toddlers.

Courses Offered at Redlands

• CDIS 204 Speech and Language Science

• CDIS 307 Language Development

• CDIS 619 Development and Disorders in Monolingual and Bilingual Spanish Speakers
• CDIS 620 Language and Cognitive Development: Typical and Atypical Variation

• CDIS 627 Issues in Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

• CDIS 660 Latin America: Focus on Language Culture, and Education

Degrees Held

• Ph.D., Language and Communicative Disorders (joint program, University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2002)

• M.A., Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences (Temple University, 1992)

• B.A., Latin-American Studies (Smith College, 1985)

Previous Teaching Experience

• University of Washington

• San Diego State University

• University of California, San Diego

Professional Experience

• Research Associate (2003-2008) and Instructor (part time, 2005), Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and Dept. of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington

• Clinical Speech-Language Pathology Instructor, Dept. of Communicative Disorders, San Diego State University (part time, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002)

• Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist; 1995 - 1998
  Logan Heights Family Health Center, San Diego, CA

• Bilingual Language-Speech-Hearing Specialist; 1994 - 1996
  Chula Vista Elementary School District, Chula Vista, CA

• Language-Speech-Hearing Specialist; 1993 - 1994
  Laguna Salada Union School District, Pacifica, CA

• Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist; 1992 - 1993
  Access Speech and Language, San Francisco, CA

• Bilingual Teacher of Moderate Special Needs; 1986 - 1988
  Holyoke Public School District, Holyoke, MA

Awards, Honors and Grants

• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Research Service Award (Post-doctoral), "Bilingual and Second Language Learning in Infancy", 2006 - 2009

• Fellowship, Visiting Researcher Programme, ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, Bangor University, Wales, 2008

• Early Career Researcher Prize, Developmental Science, Blackwell Publishing, 2006

• Bamford-Lahey Children's Foundation, Doctoral Scholarship, 2001 - 2002

• University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute, Dissertation Grant,2000 - 2001

• National Institutes of Mental Health Training Program in Cognitive Neuroscience

• (University of California, San Diego), Pre-doctoral Fellowship, 2000 - 2001

• Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Head Start Research Scholar's Grant, 1998 - 2000

• McDonnell-Pew Training Program in Cognitive Neuroscience, Pre-doctoral Fellowship, 1997 - 1998

Publications, Presentations and Panels

Kuhl, P.K., García-Sierra, A., Conboy, B., Percaccio, C., and Romo, H.D. (2010). "Bilingual language development: brain measures of phonetic learning, variation in language input, and language outcomes." Symposium presentation at the 2010 International Conference on Infant Studies, Baltimore, MD, March 10-14, 2010.

Conboy, B.T., Jackson-Maldonado, D., and Kuhl, P.K. (2009). "Speech perception in bilingual and monolingual infants." Poster presented at the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, LA, November 19-21, 2009.

Conboy, B.T. (in press, 2009). "The brain and language acquisition: variation in language knowledge and readiness for education." In M. Shatz and L. Wilkinson (Eds.), The education of English language learners: Research to practice. Guilford Press.

Kohnert, K., Kan, P.F., and Conboy, B.T. (in press, 2009). "Lexical and grammatical associations in sequential bilingual preschoolers." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Conboy, B.T. and Kuhl, P.K. (2009). "Impact of second-language experience in infancy: Brain measures of first- and second-language speech perception" (Manuscript under revision).

Conboy, B.T., Sommerville, J., and Kuhl, P.K. (2008). "Cognitive control factors in speech perception at 11 months." Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1505-1512.

Kuhl, P.K., Conboy, B.T., Coffey-Corina, S., Padden, D., Rivera-Gaxiola, M., and Nelson, T. (2008). "Phonetic learning as a pathway to language: New data and Native Language Magnet Theory-expanded (NLM-e)." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363(1493), 979-1000.

Conboy, B.T., Rivera-Gaxiola, M., Silva-Pereyra, J.F., and Kuhl, P.K. (2008). "Event-related potential studies of early language processing at the phoneme, word, and sentence levels." In A.D. Friederici and G. Thierry (Eds.), Early language development: bridging brain and behavior, Trends in language acquisition research series, Vol. 5 (pp. 24-64). Amsterdam/The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Conboy, B.T., Sommerville, J., and Kuhl, P.K. (2008). "Cognitive control skills and speech perception after short-term second language experience during infancy." Paper presented at the Acoustics '08 Meeting, Paris, FR, June-July 2008.

Conboy, B.T., Brooks, R., Taylor, M., Meltzoff, A., and Kuhl, P.K. (2008). "Joint engagement with language tutors predicts brain and behavioral responses to second-language phonetic stimuli." Poster accepted for presentation at the XVIth Biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver, BC, March 27-29, 2008.

Conboy, B.T. and Kuhl, P.K. (2007). "Early speech perception: developing a culturally specific way of listening through social interaction." In S.L. Bråten (Ed.), On being moved – from mirror neurons to empathy (pp. 175-199). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Jackson-Maldonado, D. and Conboy, B.T. (2007). "Utterance length measures for Spanish-speaking toddlers: the morpheme vs. word issue revisited." In J.G. Centeno and L.K. Obler and R. Anderson (Eds.), Studying communication disorders in Spanish speakers: Theoretical, research, and clinical aspects (pp. 142-155). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Silva-Pereyra, J.F., Conboy, B.T., Klarman, L., and Kuhl, P.K. (2007). "Grammatical processing without semantics? An event-related brain potential study of preschoolers using jabberwocky sentences." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(6), 1050-1065.

Conboy, B.T. and Mills, D.L. (2006). "Two languages, one developing brain: Effects of vocabulary size on bilingual toddlers' event-related potentials to auditory words." Developmental Science, 9(1), F1-F11.

Conboy, B.T. and Thal, D. (2006). "Ties between the lexicon and grammar: Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of bilingual toddlers." Child Development, 77(3), 712-735.

Conboy, B.T., Rivera-Gaxiola, M., Klarman, L., Aksoylu, E., and Kuhl, P.K. (2005). "Associations between native and nonnative speech sound discrimination and language development at the end of the first year." In A. Brugos, MR. Clark-Cotton, and S. Ha (Eds.). Supplement to the Proceedings of the 29th Boston University Conference on Language Development.

Kuhl, P.K., Conboy, B.T., Padden, D., Nelson, T., and Pruitt, J. (2005). "Early speech perception and later language development: implications for the 'critical period'." Language Learning and Development, 1(3&4), 237-264.

Mills, D.L., Conboy, B.T., and Paton, C. (2005). "Do changes in brain organization reflect shifts in symbolic functioning?" In L. Namy (Ed.) Symbol use and symbolic representation: Developmental/lifespan perspectives (pp. 123-153). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Jackson-Maldonado, D., Thal, D., Marchman, V., Fenson, L., Newton, T., and Conboy, B. (2003). "User's Manual, MacArthur Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas." Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Gutiérrez-Clellen, V.F., Brown, S., Conboy, B., and Robinson-Zañartu, C. (1998). "Modifiability: a dynamic approach to assessing immediate language change." Journal of Children's Communication Development, 19(2), 31-43.

Professional Affiliations

• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

• International Association for the Study of Child Language

• International Society for Infant Studies