Jessica Nolasco is a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received a B.A. in Hearing and Speech Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2017, and her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the George Washington University. As a bilingual speech-language pathologist, Jessica acquired a diverse range of experience working with children and young adults as well as serving families from marginalized populations in the DC/MD/VA area. Jessica is committed to bringing her lived experiences as a caregiver and clinician to research by identifying problems and exploring relevant and sustainable solutions for marginalized communities. Her lived experiences inform her directions as she explores how assessment practices in speech-language pathology determine outcomes for children. Prior to her doctoral studies, she served as a faculty specialist in the Language and Cognition Lab, focusing on recruiting families, collecting data, and establishing partnerships with community partners. She also worked as a bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist at the Voz Institute, where she continues to mentor new clinicians. Her research interests include equitable evaluation and service provision practices for culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
Areas of Interest
- Bilingualism
- Developmental Language Disorder
- Literacy
- Non-standardized assessment
- Bilingual Assessment
Degrees
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BAHearing and Speech Sciences
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MASpeech-Language Pathology
Awards
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Jennifer F. Lewis Memorial Award
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Carolina Rojas-Bahr Award
Conferences
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Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Integrating Automatic Speech Recognition and Natural Language Processing into Language Screening for Bilingual Spanish-English Speakers,” May 30, 2025.
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ASHA Convention 2024; “Language Sample Analysis to Differentiate Developmental Disorder from Typical Language in Bilinguals: A Meta-Analysis,” December 6, 2024.
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ASHA Convention 2023; “Translanguaging in Language Sample Analysis for Bilingual Spanish English Speakers,” November 17, 2023.
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Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The George Washington University; “GWU SLP Goes Abroad: Querétaro, México, 2020,” May 14, 2020.
Research
- Ortiz, J. A., Nolasco, J., Huang, Y. T., & Chow, J. C. (2024). The use of language sample analysis to differentiate developmental language disorder from typical language in bilingual children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Speech Langu
