DELV™ Advisory Board

Frances Burns, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a certified speech-language pathologist and the Chair of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology at Francis Marion University (FMU). She is also the Director of the FMU Center for Speech, Language, and Hearing. She teaches courses in Early Intervention, School-Age Language Disorders, and Multicultural Considerations for Service Delivery. She earned her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2004 with an emphasis on distinguishing language difference from disorder in African American English (AAE) speaking children under the direction of Dr. Harry N. Seymour. She was a member of the National Institutes of Health working group on AAE during which time she specialized in pragmatics and semantics under the guidance of Dr. Peter de Villiers and Dr. Jill de Villiers, respectively. Dr. Burns currently does research in best practices for Early Intervention with a focus on improving outcomes for families from any cultural and linguistic background.

Dr. Christina Foreman earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition, she holds an M.S. degree in Communication Disorders and a B.A. in English and Spanish Literatures from Stanford University. She is the founder and director of Hope Speech and Language Center, a private practice focused on providing culturally and linguistically appropriate evaluations for students with multilingual and multicultural backgrounds throughout Connecticut.
Dr. Foreman completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences as part of the DELV development team. She held the position of lecturer and then Assistant Professor before moving into the arena of private practice. Currently, Dr. Foreman works with multilingual therapists (Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and adding more) throughout the United States and Mexico to improve the speech-language evaluation process and support families from diverse backgrounds.

Janice E. Jackson earned her Ph.D. in Communication Disorders from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, working with Harry Seymour, Tom Roeper, and Jill de Villiers. She is president of Speaking Strategies Inc. and a clinical service provider for Dekalb County School District in Georgia. Dr. Jackson’s research interests include non-biased assessment and linguistic bases of language impairment with a body of research in the area of language acquisition in African-American-English speakers.

Janna Oetting earned her PhD from the University of Kansas and is currently a professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders and Associate Vice President in the Office of Research and Economic Development at Louisiana State University. With 30 years of experience studying children’s acquisition and use of various dialects of English in rural and urban communities of Louisiana, Janna Oetting brings expertise to the DELV team relating to children’s acquisition and use of dialects, with a particular interest in measures that are sensitive to individual differences, developmental change, and childhood language impairment within contexts of linguistic diversity.

Dr. Toya Wyatt is a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) where she has been a member of the faculty since 1990. Her areas of teaching and clinical/research expertise include child language development and disorders with a specialized focus on children’s acquisition of AAE and the assessment of AAE child speakers.
Dr. Wyatt completed her doctoral studies at UMASS under the guidance of the four authors/contributors of the DELV. She also served as a clinical consultant on the grant that led to initial publication of the DELV. She looks forward to continued work on the DELV as a member of its Advisory Board.

Dr. Wyatt holds a B.S. and M.A. degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Northwestern University as well as a Ph.D. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is also an ASHA and CSHA fellow.

Christy Wynn Moland, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a certified speech-language pathologist and the Research Project Manager for the D4 Child Language Lab in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Louisiana State University. She served as lecturer, clinical instructor, Assistant Professor, and Director of Clinical Education in the Department of Speech Pathology at Southern University and A&M College. Additionally, Dr. Wynn Moland has worked as adjunct instructor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Louisiana State University and the Department of Speech Pathology at Xavier University of Louisiana. In addition to her work in academia, she has over 20 years of experience as a clinician in early intervention, outpatient, and school settings. Dr. Wynn Moland earned her doctorate at Louisiana State University. Her dissertation compared the DELV-Screening Test to other language tools for preschool children, and her research interests continue to include child language acquisition, screening, and assessment in linguistically diverse populations.