Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-CL, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and former Director of the Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences at Western Michigan University. She is author of the book Language and Literacy Disorders: Infancy Through Adolescence, and first author of the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS), as well as editor-in-chief of the journal, Topics in Language Disorders. Dr. Nelson's research and publications focus on curriculum-based language and literacy assessment and intervention. Michele A. Anderson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an assistant professor at Western Michigan University. She was instrumental in coordinating the national validation studies for the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS) under the direction of Dr. Nickola Nelson and serves as TILLS Project Coordinator. Dr. Anderson's most recent scholarly work involves investigating the role of verbal working memory in child language assessment, test development, cultural influences on pragmatics of writing, phonological awareness training for pre-school age children, and influences on reading comprehension. She has taught child language development courses at Western Michigan University, co-written articles, and given numerous national presentations on topics related to school-age child language disorders. Elena Plante, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson. She is a fellow both of The University of Arizona's College of Science and of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Her areas of research interest include language learning and assessment practices. She in addition to multiple journal articles on these topics, Dr. Plante is a co-author on the Pediatric Test of Brain Injury and the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills. Dr. Plante has also been using neuroimaging to explore the brain bases of language and cognition for the last 2 decades. She has active national and international collaborations in the areas of neuroimaging, language, and learning.
