Associate Professor
Ed.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1994
Child Language Development and Disorders; Autism

Email: rollins@utdallas.edu
Phone: 214-905-3153
Office: CD A1.24

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About Pamela Rollins

Pamela Rollins, Associate Professor, is a faculty member in the Communication Disorders program within the School of Behavior and Brain Sciences at UTD/Callier Center for Communication Disorders. Pamela obtained a bachelor's degree, cum laude, in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Boston University in 1981 and a Masters of Science degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. She did her clinical fellowship at Brown University's, Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital under the supervision of Dr. Barry Prizant. Pamela went on to receive an Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1994. In 1995 she was the recipient of the American Speech Language and Hearing Foundation's First Investigators award to study the relationship between early pragmatic accomplishments and vocabulary development in children with autism (Rollins, 1999). She has been appointed the Callier 2001-2002 Callier Scholar.

Pamela's research focuses on the association between early social-communicative skills, emotional regulation skills and the acquisition of vocabulary, grammar and narrative in typically developing children and children with autism. Dr. Rollins' research lends empirical support to social-pragmatic theories of language as well as social-pragmatic intervention models (Rollins, et al., 1998; Rollins & Snow, 1998; Rollins, 1999; Rollins, 2003). In the Fall of 2003, Dr. Rollins opened The Early CLASS (Early Communication Language and Social Skills). The Early Class is a classroom-based program for young children (3-5 years) on the autistic spectrum. This laboratory school offers clinical/educational services to individuals on the autistic spectrum and their families, graduate level training in speech/language pathology and Early Childhood Education. In addition, the Early CLASS both clinical and basic research questions are addressed.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the continuity between early social-communication abilities and the acquisition of language and discourse skills in typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Of particular interest is the co-construction of joint attention and language within infant-caregiver interactions and during language intervention for children with ASD. I employ a longitudinal research design that uses microanalyses of within-child and between-child development.

Recent Publications

Trautman, C.H. and Rollins, P.R. (2006). Child-centered behaviors of caregivers with 12-month-old infants: Associations with passive joint engagement and later language. Journal of Applied Pycholinguistics. 27, 447-463.

Rollins, P.R. (2003). Caregiver contingent comments and subsequent vocabulary Comprehension. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 221-234.
     
Rollins, P.R. and Snow, C.E. (1998). Shared attention and grammatical development in typical children and children with autism. Journal of Child Language, 25, 653-674.