Screen Time, Learning, & Communication in the 21st Century

Carol Westby, PhD, CCC-SLP, 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. Dr. Westby is certified as an Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist (ASDCS).

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Carol Westby has an employment relationship with Brigham Young University and is a consultant with Bilingual Multicultural Services. She receives royalties as a published author. Carol Westby receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Carol Westby is a member of American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders.