Carol Westby – Play & Language: The Roots of Literacy

Carol Westby, CCC-SLP, PhD, BCS-CL, ASDCS Related seminars and products: 8

Carol Westby, CCC-SLP, PhD, BCS-CL, ASDCS, is an internationally renowned expert on play assessment and development in children. She is the developer of the renowned Westby Symbolic Play Scale, a research-based scale used to assess children’s social and play skills. Dr. Westby has written and implemented projects to support personnel preparation, clinical service, and research, including Project PLAY (Play and Language Attunement in Young Children), that trains caregivers to increase the development of play, theory of mind, and language.

Dr. Westby is a fellow of the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), is Board Certified in Child Language and Literacy Disorders, and has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Geneva College and the University of Iowa’s Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, the ASHA Award for Contributions to Multicultural Affairs, the Honors of ASHA, and the Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award.

Dr. Westby has published and presented nationally and internationally on topics including play, autobiographical memory, theory of mind, language-literacy relationships, narrative/expository development and facilitation, adverse childhood experiences, screen time, trauma, metacognition/executive function, and assessment and intervention with culturally/linguistically diverse populations. She has consulted with the New Mexico Preschool for the Deaf, which employs a play-based curriculum.

Dr. Westby has been a visiting professor at Flinders University in South Australia where she worked on a language/literacy curriculum, and at Brigham Young University where she consulted on SEEL, a systematic and engaging emergent literacy program that employs playful practice. She is a consultant for Bilingual Multicultural Services in Albuquerque, NM and holds an affiliated appointment in Communication Disorders at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT.

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Carol Westby is a consultant for Bilingual Multicultural Services. Dr. Westby receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She is the author of numerous chapters and articles, and is published by various publishers including Jones & Bartlett and Pearson.

Non-financial: Carol Westby is the developer of the Westby Play Scale. Dr. Westby is a fellow of the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association.