Faculty & Staff

Carol Scheffner Hammer, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Carol Scheffner Hammer, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Deparment of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Temple University.  She received a B.A. in Speech Pathology and Psychology from Augustana College, an M.A. in Speech Pathology from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in Speech Pathology.  She was a faculty member in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Penn State University from 1997-2009.  She was also a Visiting Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Center for Developmental Science. 

Dr. Hammer has been the recipient of three important awards: 2007 Editor’s award for her paper in Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2002 Editor’s award for her paper in Contemporary Issues in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and specialty recognition in child language disorders.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Language and literacy development and disorders in bilingual children

Cultural and environmental influences on language and literacy outcomes of children from diverse backgrounds

Parental beliefs about language and literacy development and disorders

Language development and disorders

FUNDING SOURCES

Tools of the Mind:  Promoting ELLs' Language, Self-regulation & School Readiness (C.S. Hammer, Principal Investigator). This project is designed to test the efficacy of an innovative preschool curriculum known as Tools of the Mind. Tools of the Mind is designed to enhance children’s language and self-regulation development and promote children's early academic and social-emotional competencies. This project is funded by the NIH-National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and ACF-Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Research.

Promoting the Emergent Literacy Development of English Language Learners: A Culturally-Informed Approach (C.S. Hammer, Principal Investigator). The purpose of the project is to develop and evaluate a home-based, culturally-informed emergent literacy intervention that is designed to promote Latino parents' abilities to support the language and literacy development of their children who are learning English. The intervention is based on a socio-cultural perspective that recognizes that families operate from a cultural model when raising children; an emergent literacy perspective that emphasizes the importance of language, print concepts, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge; and a view of language which argues that support of children's first language is essential when they are learning a second. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

Assessing Bilingual Phonological Development in Young Children (C.S. Hammer Principal Investigator). The aims of this project are: (1) To develop a valid and reliable measure to identify phonological disorder in bilingual Spanish and English speaking children and to distinguish disorder from phonological variation due to typical bilingual phonological development and change (2) To assess change in multiple aspects of bilingual children's phonological development in order to identify characteristics of young bilingual children's phonological systems that are indicators of disorder later in development (3) To develop training materials and a screening tool for use by speech-language pathologists. The phonological assessment project is funded jointly by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, The Administration for Children and Families and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (2005–2010).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Hammer, C.S., Davison, M.D., Lawrence, F.R., & Miccio, A.W. (in press). The effect of home language on bilingual children’s vocabulary and emergent literacy development during Head Start and kindergarten. Scientific Studies of Reading - Special Issue.

Miccio, A.W., Hammer, C.S., & Rodríguez, B.L. (in press). Code-switching and language disorders in young bilingual children. In J. Toribio & B. Bullock (Eds.), Handbook on linguistic code-switching. Cambridge University Press.

Rodríguez, B., Hammer, C.S., & Lawrence, F.R. (in press). Parent reading belief inventory: Reliability and validity with a sample of Mexican-American families. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Hammer, C.S., Lawrence, F.R., & Miccio, A.W. (2008). The effect of summer vacation on bilingual preschoolers' language development. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22 (9), 686–902.

Hammer, C. S., Lawrence, F.R., & Miccio, A.W. (2008). Exposure to English before and after entry into head start: Bilingual children's receptive language growth in Spanish and English. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11 (1), 30–56.

Durham, R., Farkas, G., Hammer, C.S., Tomblin, J.B., & Catts, H.W. (2007). Kindergarten oral language skill: A key variable in the intergenerational transmission of socioecomonic status. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 25, 294–305.

Hammer, C.S., Lawrence, F.R., & Miccio, A.W. (2007). Bilingual children's language abilities and reading outcomes in head start and kindergarten. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 38, 237–248. Invited Article.

Hammer, C.S., Rodríguez, B.L., Lawrence, F.R., & Miccio, A.W., (2007). Puerto Rican mothers' beliefs and home literacy practices. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 38, 216–224. Invited Article.

Hammer, C.S., & Miccio, A.W. (2006). Early language and reading development of bilingual preschoolers from low-income families. Topics in Language Disorders, 26 (4), 302–317.