Language and Literacy Lab

Lisa Bowers, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Biography

Lisa Bowers is an associate professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Program at the University of Arkansas. Her research focuses on the language and literacy abilities of children from diverse populations, including children with hearing loss and dyslexia. She is a member of several interprofessional research teams with scholars from Deaf Education, Counselor Education, Childhood Education and Special Education that focus on communication access and best practices in Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Practice (IPP) in educational settings.

Dr. Bowers is also the Director of the Service Learning Initiative (SLI). SLI is a campuswide initiative that formalizes and expands service learning opportunities for students taught by faculty while enriching and extending the U of A's impact with community partners.

Lab Research Summary

Research conducted in the language and literacy lab focuses on the auditory, language and literacy abilities of children from culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Language and literacy abilities of students who are deaf — Children who are deaf often present unique spelling configurations that differ from their hearing peers. We are currently analyzing the writing samples from students from diverse educational settings (i.e., public school self-contained, public school mainstream, schools for the deaf) as well as varying communication philosophies (i.e., American Sign Language (ASL)-English bilingual, Listening and Spoken Language, Total Communication).

Language and vocabulary development of children from special populations — Graduate students in the CSDI program at the University of Arkansas are involved in a service-learning project with Washington County Head Start centers. This partnership focuses on assessing the language growth of children using standardized assessments, parent questionnaires and reading logs.

Interprofessional Education (IPE) — IPE is critical to the advancement of interprofessional practice (IPP), in which professionals have a deeper understanding and appreciation of how to work as a team to achieve the best holistic outcomes for students. Our research team examines the impact interprofessional experiences have on pre-service professionals, their supervisors, and their students, particularly in educational settings.

Research Implications

Broadly, research outcomes from the lab are designed to better understand what auditory, language, and writing skills are necessary and what interventions are appropriate for children to successfully communicate with others, particularly in the academic setting when working collaboratively with other professionals.

Student impact — Both undergraduate and graduate students are involved in all aspects of the research process, including literature review, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of results. Students regularly present at national conventions.

2025-2026 lab members — Bentley Barringhaus, Caroline Fields, Claire Johnson, Avery Smith and Rachel Ward

Selected Publications

Bowers, L., Young, H., & Speight, R. (2024). Lessons learned through interprofessional education: Exploring collaboration with elementary education, special education, and communication sciences and disorders pre-service professionals. School-University Partnerships, 17(3), 259-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/SUP-02-2023-0012

Ramsdell, H. & Bowers, L. (2024). Spelling facilitates reading: A tutorial on the Spell-to-Read approach. Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools, 16, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_LSHSS-23-00137

Bowers, L. & Ramsdell, H. (2023). Rethinking literacy interventions: How SLPs can use best practices from Multisensory Structured Language (MSL) approaches. Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 815-830. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00133

Bowers, L., Robinson, S., & Metcalf, M. (2023). Examination of factors that predict the receptive vocabulary knowledge of children who attend Head Start programs. Communication Disorders Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/15257401231161590