Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences
(812) 855-9173
gierut@indiana.edu
See also: http://www.indiana.edu/~sndlrng

Ph.D., Indiana University, 1985

• Esther L. Kinsley Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award,1986
• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, 1985-1988
• NIH FIRST Independent Research Support and Transition Award, 1988-1993
• NIH Research Career Development Award, 1992-1997
• EditorsU Award, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1997
• Finkelstein Fellow of the College of Arts and Sciences, 1997-2001

My research examines children's acquisition of the phonological system of the native language, with special emphasis on preschoolers who exhibit functional speech sound delays. The work is grounded in linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, and serves as a test case of these models. The children who participate require clinical intervention, which is delivered as an experimental manipulation, to advance their phonological systems. The outcome of this research has applied consequences that bear directly on issues of the efficacy of clinical treatments. Current funding is from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders DC01694 "Development of Phonological Categories."

The Learnability Project is located in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. The lab is equipped for digital audio and video recording and speech analysis, and relies on a network of Macintosh workstations in data collection and analysis. The experimental treatment of children with phonological delays takes place in the clinical facility of the Department. The clinical treatment rooms are equipped with conventional diagnostic and treatment materials, in addition to computers which are used in presentation of digital picture stimuli. Treatment rooms permit one-way observation of the clinical sessions.

Gierut, J. A. (1998). Natural domains of cyclicity in phonological acquisition.
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 12, 481-499.

Gierut, J. A. (1998). Production, conceptualization and change in distinctive feature categories.
Journal of Child Language, 25, 321-341.

Gierut, J. A. (1998). Treatment efficacy for functional phonological disorders in children.
Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 41, S85-S100.

Gierut, J. A., & Morrisette, M. (1998). Lexical characteristics of sound change.
In A. Greenhill, M. Hughes, H. Littlefield, & H. Walsh (Eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd annual Boston University conference on language development: Vol. 1 (pp. 257-268). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Goldstein, H., & Gierut, J. A. (1998). Outcomes measurement in child language and phonological disorders.
In C. M. Frattali (Ed.), Measuring outcomes in speech-language pathology (pp. 406-437). New York: Thieme Medical Publishers.

Gierut, J. A. & Champion, A. H. (1999). Interacting error patterns and their resistance to treatment.
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 13.

Gierut, J. A., & Champion, A. H. (1999). Learning and the representation of complex onsets.
In A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield, & C. Tano (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston University conference on language development: Vol. 1 (pp. 196-203). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Gierut, J. A., Morrisette, M. L., & Champion, A. H. (1999). Lexical constraints on phonological acquisition.
Journal of Child Language, 26.

Barlow, J. A., & Gierut, J. A. (in press). Optimality theory in phonological acquisition.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Gierut, J. A. (in press). Syllable onsets: Consonant clusters and adjuncts in acquisition.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.