Mail to:
202G Barkley Center
Lincoln, NE 68583-0732
Telephone: (402) 472-4431
FAX: (402) 472-7697
email: ccress1@unl.edu
Cynthia Cress is an Associate Professor specializing in language development and disorders, early intervention and augmentative communication. She teaches one undergraduate class in language development for preschool children and one undergraduate class in multicultural applications of communication assessment and intervention. Her two graduate courses are on communication assessment and intervention for a) children Birth-to-Three, and b) persons with severe disabilities and autism. She also teaches a Doctoral readings and research class about early communication and language development.
Dr. Cress was the Principal Investigator on a National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.) grant under the Clinical Investigator Development Award (C.I.D.A.). This was a five year research grant targeting early communication and symbolic development in children at risk for becoming non speaking as a result of physical impairments. This research involved longitudinal samples of language and other developmental behaviors from children who were 1-3 years of age. Additional analyses, publications, and grant proposals in this area are continuing.
Current research activities include developing and testing technology to support infant vocal development, through an NIH grant. In several projects, she is comparing efficacy of different approaches to intervention for young children relying on AAC. Other ongoing investigations address predicting speech impairments in children at risk due to feeding impairments, and developing assessment instruments for children and adults who are preintentional communicators.
Dr. Cress got her Ph.D. and Masters degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. Dr. Cress received the Distinguished Service Award from the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America, has served as an associate editor for the journal Augmentative and Alternative Communication, federal grant reviewer for the National Institute of Deafness and other Communicative Disorders, and editorial consultant for the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
She received the College Distinguished Teaching Award from UNL for excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching. She has great enthusiasm for gardening, enjoys folk music and dance by both writing songs and playing the guitar and lap dulcimer. When she's not coaxing those hundreds of baby seedlings to grow, she also enjoys knitting.
Presentations Clinical Resources Educational Opportunities
Dr. Cress answers frequently asked questions about getting a Ph.D. at UNL Links to other early intervention and AAC websites
