Boys Town New Endowed Chair in Childhood Deafness, Language and Learning to be Held by Lisa Goffman, Ph.D.
Friday, July 19, 2024
Boys Town welcomes Lisa Goffman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP as the new Endowed Chair in the Center on Childhood Deafness, Language and Learning. Her research focuses on how children with developmental language disorder (DLD) acquire language and motor abilities. She is interested in how interactions between language, cognitive, and motor skills may contribute to new and effective assessment and intervention approaches. Her research has been funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health for over 25 years.
“I am thrilled to join the Boys Town research team and a remarkable group of scientists focused on language disorders in children,” Dr. Goffman said. “We have eight researchers focused on DLD who all have unique perspectives. I study how language and action interact in complex learning, including of language. Other scientists in the Center consider DLD in relation to trauma; cognitive abilities, such as memory; auditory abilities and hearing; and literacy. We are interested in DLD across the lifespan. We share a passion for understanding mechanisms that underlie DLD and for identifying and developing new assessments and treatments to alleviate this disorder that affects so many children and adults. The excellent and multifaceted group at Boys Town was the big attractor for me to come here.”
Dr. Goffman was on faculty at Purdue University for 21 years, where she established her “Language in Motion” lab. Most recently, she served as the endowed chair in Early Childhood Communication Disorders in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Dr. Goffman received her clinical master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Purdue University, went on to work as an SLP in a highly interdisciplinary early intervention program, and then returned to Purdue for her doctorate. The inspiration for her return to research came from her clinical observations while working as a Speech-Language Pathologist in early intervention.
“I had the opportunity to work closely with psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, occupational and physical therapists, audiologists, and educators. The interdisciplinary perspective I was exposed to inspired me to consider how social, cognitive, language, and motor factors all interact in the development of a child. This interdisciplinary, interactive, and family-centered approach fueled my desire to return to school for doctoral study and laid the groundwork for my excitement in joining the group at Boys Town.”
She is transitioning her “Language in Motion” lab to Boys Town and her plans for the endowed chair position include, “engaging in the array of research and clinical opportunities that are the essence of Boys Town.” Some of these opportunities include joint research with her colleagues in the Center for Childhood Deafness, Language, and Learning in investigating and establishing optimal treatments for people with DLD across the lifespan. She also has initiated interactions with new colleagues in the other Centers, as she establishes novel conceptual and methodological approaches for studying how children, especially those with DLD, learn. Dr. Goffman is extremely excited to be part of the Boys Town clinical research team.
