Christina Gildersleeve-Neumann, PhD, CCC-SLP is Professor and Chair of the Speech and Hearing Department at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Her areas of expertise include severe speech sound disorders in monolingual English and bilingual Spanish-English children. She has been working with children and adolescents with severe speech sound disorders since Kathy supervised her in graduate school 22 years ago! Her research explores articulatory and phonology influences on speech development and disorder in children from monolingual and bilingual environments and includes intervention research for severe speech sound disorders, including Childhood Apraxia of Speech, in English and Spanish-English children. Core to all of her work is understanding and application of phonetic science and phonetic transcription. She has been teaching phonetics for over 20 years. In her spare time she loves traveling and listening to other languages, especially figuring out what people do in their vocal tract to produce different sounds, as well as how listeners categorize those sounds in language-specific ways!

How did you first become interested in CAS?

I was fortunate to be a doctoral student at UT-Austin in the late 1990s when Babs Davis & Tom Marquardt were conducting assessments of children suspected of CAS (DAS back then) from all over the state of Texas.  So I observed a lot of differential diagnoses and saw a lot of children with severe SSDs that were and were not CAS.  One of my graduate clinical assignments was under Kathy Jakielski.  I had the opportunity to work with an adolescent with severe CAS for about a year.  And I’ve been working with kids with CAS ever since!

How long have you been interested in CAS?

Over 25 years!  It’s been about 23 years since I saw my first bilingual child with CAS.

What is your “why” for being involved with Apraxia Kids?

I learn so much in working with other professionals and such an amazing nonprofit. Great ideas, service commitment, partnerships with families, educational approach.  I am energized by all that is done!

What is your vision for the next 2-3 years for Apraxia Kids?

It is great to see the growing outreach to other language speakers and more multilinguals.  I’d love to see more resources for families, culturally adapted approaches to CAS, learning from what others are doing in other countries. I also love the educational modules that have been created.  My vision would be more families and professionals having the tools to effectively support their loved ones and clients with CAS.

A couple of fun things about you – favorite pastime, latest non-professional book you read, hobby or favorite pastime, person you would most love to have dinner with (living now or in the past), dream vacation, or anything else that might be of interest that you want to share! Pick 2 or 3 things to tell us about yourself!

Favorite pastimes include reading, exercising outdoors, traveling, gardening, and knitting.  And spending time with my family.  They’re all at the top of the list.  Traveling in Spanish speaking countries is always fun – I feel like I get to know the culture and people better when I can make a decent stab at communication in Spanish.

I’m  currently reading two books:  Slough House by Mick Herron (7th in a British MI5 series. I love mysteries, thrillers, and historical novels).  Also reading Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka.

I think I’d have dinner with my mom, who passed in 2020.  Always so much I’d like to be sharing with her!