LinkedIn | tgirolamo at sdsu dot edu
I am a special education teacher turned researcher. I am currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University. I am an Investigator of the UCSD Dissemination and Implementation Science Center (DISC), Research Scientist of the UCSD Child & Adolescent Services Research Center, Adjunct Faculty of the SDSU Department of Psychology, and a Faculty Affiliate of the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health – Health Behavior Track.
Previously, I earned my PhD in Child Language at the University of Kansas and completed postdoctoral training in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Communication at the University of Connecticut. My training has been supported by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
Research
My research involves understanding and improving language and communication development. The long-term goal of my work is to improve communication outcomes in autism and other neurodivergent populations by creating effective, personalized interventions. My research is interdisciplinary and spans communication sciences and disorders, education, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and public health. I use primarily behavioral methods, including co-design, data science, mixed methods, focus groups, surveys, clinical assessment, psychometrics, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Current studies address:
- Examining how to improve precision in clinical assessment, given variability in language and communication skills
- Determining the role of individual and contextual factors in communication outcomes of autistic adolescents and adults
- Understanding how to support language and communication in autistic adolescents and adults in postsecondary settings
Funding
My research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, CSUBIOTECH, CSU STEM-Net, and the Drexel University A.J. Drexel Autism Institute. Currently, my work is supported by:
