Caitlin A. Ross, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
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Dr. Caitlin Ross is a licensed speech-language pathologist. She teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of anatomy, phonetics and phonology, fluency, speech sound disorders, as well as language and literacy development in school-aged children. Her classroom teaching is informed by her clinical practice in early intervention and particular research interests in speech perception, noise and word learning outcomes, and the spoken language and literacy development of both typical children and the pediatric deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) population.
Degrees & Certifications
- PhD, Communication Sciences and Disorders, West Virginia University
- MS, Speech-Language Pathology, Ithaca College
- BS, Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington
- BA, French Language and Literature, Gonzaga University
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC-SLP)
- Connecticut Speech Language Pathology License
- West Virginia Speech Language Pathology License
Teaching Responsibilities
Dr. Ross teaches within the Communication Disorders and Speech-Language Pathology undergraduate and graduate programs. Undergraduate courses include Anatomy and Physiology of Speech and Swallowing as well as Phonetics and Phonology. Graduate courses include Speech Sound Disorders, Fluency and Speech-Language Pathology Practice in Schools.
Research Interests & Current Projects
Dr. Ross conducts research in child language and literacy development, most recently exploring contextualized word learning outcomes in response to varying types and volumes of background noise. She holds a particular interest in the speech perception and spoken language acquisition of the DHH population. She has conducted pilot work in the schools investigating the impacts of presentation modality of a storybook intervention on the retention of novel vocabulary words in children with hearing loss and used simulation to examine the effects of spectral degradation on short- and long-term phonological memory and word learning outcomes. Additionally, she often mentors interested students and provides community outreach in the form of preschool hearing screenings and pediatric hearing loss/spoken language education and research opportunities.
Dr. Ross’s research aims to better understand how those with hearing loss learn spoken language and the interaction between noise and learning at all ages. This line of research is foundational to future work that can optimize hearing assistive technology, the acoustic environment in learning spaces, and improve instructional techniques to create positive language learning environments for students of all levels and abilities.
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