Phonological Awareness, First Edition

Gail T. Gillon, PhD, is a senior academic staff member in the Department of Communication Disorders at the University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha, in Christchurch, New Zealand. A native New Zealander, she completed her undergraduate qualifications in education, primary teaching, and speech-language therapy in Christchurch in 1983. Following a period of several years working in New Zealand and Australia as a speech-language pathologist, she completed her Doctorate in Speech and Hearing at the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1995. Professor Gillon returned to the University of Canterbury in 1996 to undertake a prestigious 2-year postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and Technology. She currently lectures and teaches in the Department of Communication Disorders, College of Science. Her research focuses on understanding the relationship between developmental spoken and written language disorders, and she has led a series of successful intervention trials investigating the benefits of phonological awareness interventions for children at high risk for literacy difficulties. Professor Gillon's research has been widely published in leading U.S., British, European, Australian, and New Zealand speech-language pathology and reading journals. She has won on three occasions (1995, 2000, 2005) the esteemed American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Editor's award for a research article of highest merit.