Staff

Rachel Aghara

Rachel

Aghara

Academic Title

Special Assistant to the Dean

Research Summary

I have research and clinical service expertise in early development of language, speech, literacy and caregiver-child relationships in multilingual populations. My work includes the development or revision of over 20 college courses and professional workshops on diversity in human communication development and professional practice.

Education
  • Ph.D., Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at Austin
  • M.A., Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at Austin
  • B.S., Communicative Disorders and Sciences, State University of New York at Geneseo
Recent Publications

Proctor, A., Bunta, F. & Aghara, R.G. (2014) Stop VOT Productions by young Bilingual

Spanish-English Speakers and Their Monolingual Peers. In YavaÅŸ, M. (Ed.) Unusual Productions in Phonology: Universals and language-specific considerations.

Anthony, J. L., Williams, J. M., Duran, L.K., Gillam, S., Liang, L., Aghara, R., Swank, P., Assel, M., & Landry, S. (2011) Spanish Phonological Awareness: Dimensionality and sequence of development during the preschool and kindergarten years. Journal of Educational Psychology,103, 857-876.

Anthony, J. L., Greenblatt Aghara, R., Dunkelberger, M. J., Anthony, T. I., Williams, J. M., & Zhang, Z., (2011). What factors place children with speech sound disorders at risk for reading problems? American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 20, 146-160.

Jackson-Maldonnado, D., Peña, E.D., & Aghara, R.G. (2011). Funciones de lenguaje y tipos de palabras en la interacción entre madres y sus hijos e hijas (Language functions and types of words in interactions between mothers and their sons and daughters.) In de León, L. & Rojas Nieto, C. (Eds). La adquisición de la lengua materna: Problemas y perspectivas. UNAM-CIESAS, México.

Anthony, J. L., Aghara, R.G., Solari, E. J., Dunkelberger, M. J., Williams, J. M., Liang, L. (2010). Quantifying phonological representation abilities in Spanish-speaking preschool children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 19-49. doi: 10.1017/S0142716410000275.

Honors and Awards
2018 ASHA Award for Continuing Education (ACE).
2010 Faculty Development Initiative Program, University of Houston. $21,000, Co-PI Enhancing the ComD Core: Enriching the Core Courses in Communication Sciences and Disorders via Consolidated Resources and Learning Modules.
2009 Faculty Development Initiative Program, University of Houston. $4000 for development of Computerized Language Analysis Activities.
2005 President’s Research Award, Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation.
2004-2005 Lee and Joe Jamail Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Speech-Language Pathology, University of Texas at Austin.
Professional Experience

My clinical responsibilities as a speech-language pathologist have included preschool teacher mentor program coordination, parent-child group coordination, SLP assistant and student supervision, and provision of pediatric multilingual assessments and interventions in hospital, preschool, center-based, client home, community and tele-practice settings.

Licenses and Certifications
  • Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology, ASHA.
  • Licensed Speech-Language Pathologist, Massachusetts.
  • Certified Provider for the Hanen “It Takes Two to Talk” Program.