Nicole Patton Terry, Ph.D.

Florida State University, College of Education, Department of Psychology

Olive & Manuel Bordas Professor of Education

Professor— Reading Education, School of Teacher Education (STE)

Director—Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR)

Deputy Director—Regional Education Lab-Southeast (REL-Southeast)

Education

B.S. in human communication sciences, Northwestern University, 1999
M.S. in learning disabilities, Northwestern University, 2001
Ph.D. in communication sciences and disorders-learning disabilities, Northwestern University, 2004

Specializations

Language and literacy
Learning disabilities

Biography

Nicole Patton Terry is an associate professor at Georgia State University in the Department of Educational Psychology, Special Education, and Communication Disorders.

Terry is coordinator of the Behavior Learning Disabilities Program, affiliate faculty in the educational psychology and communication disorders programs, a member of the Center for Research on Atypical Development (CRADL) and the Learning and the Board of Regents Initiative on Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy (RCALL) and director of the newly founded Urban Child Study Center in the College of Education & Human Development.

Terry is also a research scientist at Haskins Laboratories at Yale University, an associate editor of the American Journal of Speech Language Pathology and a board member for the Georgia Association on Young Children and the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.

Terry’s research interests concern young children with and without learning disabilities who struggle to acquire language and literacy skills, in particular children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The overwhelming majority of that work has focused on African-American children in preschool through third grade who speak non-mainstream American English (NMAE) dialects and who live in low-income or working class households, and has included experimental, intervention and evaluation studies of reading, writing and oral language skills, instruction and professional development.

Terry completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) communication sciences and disorders with an emphasis in learning disabilities.

Publications

Mansour, S, & Terry, N.P. (in press). Phonological awareness skills of young African American English speakers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Terry, N. P., Mills, M., Bingham, G., Mansour, S., & Marencin, N. (in press). Oral narrative skills of African American pre-kindergarteners who speak Nonmainstream American English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Terry, N. P. (2012). Dialect variation and phonological knowledge: Phonological representations and metalinguistic awareness among beginning readers who speak nonmainstream American English. Applied Psycholinguistics. Available on CJO doi: 10.1017/S0142716412000276.

Terry, N. P. & Connor, C.M. (2012). Changing nonmainstream American English use and early reading achievement from kindergarten to first grade. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 21, 78-86.

Terry, N. P., Connor, C. M., Petscher, Y., & Conlin, C. (2012). Dialect variation and reading: Is change in nonmainstream American English use related to reading achievement in first and second grade? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 55-69.