Our Team

Julie L. Thompson, PhD, BCBA-D, is an Assistant Professor of Special Education and Affiliated Faculty Member of the Center on Disability and Development at Texas A&M University. Julie’s work as a classroom teacher for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gave her insight into the layered complexities of providing adequate education to individuals with ASD in public schools. She was a research associate for the Center on Secondary Education for Students with ASD, developing literacy supports for high school students with ASD and intellectual disability, and a postdoctoral scholar at Michigan State University, working with a team conducting research on a behavior analytic approach to comprehensive reading instruction for children with ASD. Julie’s research examines explicit instruction procedures to teach language and literacy skills to ethnically and linguistically diverse children with autism spectrum disorder in public school settings.

She is particularly interested in instructional design, group instructional arrangements, technology-delivered literacy instruction, and gaze-behaviors of children with ASD when engaged with technology-delivered literacy instruction. Currently she is conducting three funded research projects (1) Parent-Directed Comprehensive Language and Literacy Supports (Lsquared) – She is examining an innovative storybook lesson approach to teach parents to model the use of augmentative and alternative communication devices to improve language and to teach both code- and meaning-focused emergent literacy skills to children with ASD who are minimally verbal (MV-ASD). Using an iterative approach, she will collect data on its feasibility, usability, and fidelity of implementation in the home and preschool environment; (2) Emergent Literacy Assessment for Minimally Verbal Children with autism – she is developing a literacy assessment that includes eye-gaze and touch-based responses with standardized behavior protocols to accurately pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the literacy skills of minimally verbal children with autism. Following reliability and validity development, this assessment will be used to develop strategic interventions matched to learner characteristics and as a distal measure to verify efficacy of current and future interventions used to teach emergent literacy to individuals with MV-ASD. (3) Home literacy environment comparison – in this study she is examining the context and content of story-based reading between parents and their children and examining whether difference exists between reading practices of parents with children with autism spectrum disorder and parents of children without disabilities.

(979) 845-7423
jlthompson@tamu.edu

Hometown: San Antonio, TX

Major: School Psychology

Department: Educational Psychology

Research Interests: Cultural/ Linguistic modifications to behavioral and academic interventions, Culturally sensitive parent training

Current Project: Lsquared

Email: ileana.umana@tamu.edu

Hometown: Aguascalientes, México

Major: Special Education

Department: Educational Psychology

Research Interests: Interventions for culturally and linguistically diverse children with neurodevelopmental disorders and emotional behavior disorders.

Current Project: Lsquared

Email: claudiamdunn@tamu.edu 

I love to make the difference in people’s lives.

Hometown: Jilin, China

Major: Special Education

Department: Educational Psychology

Research Interests: Social skills interventions for preschoolers with social deficits

Hometown: Huangshi, China

Major: Human Resource Development (HRD)

Department: Educational Administration and Human Resource Development (EAHR)

Research Interests: employee engagement, change management, loyalty, educational technology

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Major: Special Education

Department: Educational Psychology

Hometown: Pearland, TX

Major: Special Education

Department: Educational Psychology

Research Interests: secondary special education, transition from secondary to postsecondary, interventions that promote vocational and employment skills

Hometown: Austin, TX

Major: School Psychology

Department: Educational Psychology

Research Interests: Assessment, Emotional Intelligence, Literacy