Supports the Student Research Grant in Early Childhood Language

Arlene M. Matkin was a speech-language pathologist whose career focused on young children with multiple developmental disabilities. In an era when "speech correction" was the focus, her concern was language acquisition and delay. It was this concern that led Mrs. Matkin and her mentor, Julia Malloy, to write a textbook for parents entitled Your Retarded Child Can Learn to Communicate. The book highlighted the use of total communication and alternate communication systems as well as verbal language, depending on the specific child's strengths and limitations.

Mrs. Matkin also served first as a speech-language pathologist and subsequently as an administrator in public schools where she championed early identification and intervention for young children with language delays and disorders. Her career included positions as principal of the Malloy Education Center for children with multiple disabilities in Morton Grove, Illinois, and as a speech, language, and hearing resource consultant for the Omaha Public Schools.

At the time of her death in 1983, she was a clinical instructor in speech-language pathology at the University of Arizona.

Past Recipients of the Student Research Grant in Early Childhood Language

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