New Professor Studies Factors in Children with Learning Disabilities

Photo by University Relations

Pradyumn Srivastava

Pradyumn Srivastava, University of Arkansas assistant professor of communication disorders, aims to inform and improve intervention practices of speech language pathologists through his research.

He joined the College of Education and Health Professions in October of 2014.

Srivastava received his bachelor's degree from the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for Hearing Handicapped at Osmania University in India. He received his master's degree in speech language pathology from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing at the University of Mysore. Then he went on to receive his doctorate in Speech and Hearing Science from Arizona State University in 2010.

Srivastava gained clinical experience from the Houston Independent School District, where he worked as a speech language pathologist for three years. During that job, he primarily addressed the assessment and intervention needs of school age children with various speech, language and cognitive deficits.

At the U of A, Srivastava studies the role of language and cognition in the development of literacy skills, both reading and writing, of school age children with and without language learning disabilities.

"Specifically, the research targets understanding differences in reading comprehension between paper-based and computer-based platforms such as hypertext (or web-based platform)," he said.

Through this research, he will be able to examine the linguistic and cognitive factors that mediate hypertext reading comprehension in school going adolescents with and without language learning disabilities.

"Through such research, it's quite interesting to me to progressively learn more about linguistic and cognitive factors that underlie literacy development and disorders," he said. "As a speech language pathologist, it is crucial to understand these factors in order to plan intervention that not only targets language but literacy, too."

This year, Srivastava received the ILA Elva Knight Research Grant in order to continue his investigation with reading comprehension in a computer-based platform with children with and without language learning disabilities.