- Professor and Department Head, Communication Sciences and Disorders
Dr. Diane Williams is a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist. As such, she is interested in learning more about how children and adults with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental language disorders learn and use language. Most language assessments and interventions are based on models of language learning in typically developing individuals. Dr. Williams thinks we need to understand how language processing occurs in individuals who have a learning difference. She has used behavioral measures and functional imaging to understand more about how individuals with developmental language disorders successfully perform language tasks. Dr. Williams is particularly interested in what happens during the learning process when the demands of the tasks increase—what makes the task difficult and how the task could be changed to make learning more successful.