Stephen Camarata, PhD, CCC-SLP

Stephen Camarata, PhD. CCC-SLP is an internationally recognized expert on child development broadly with a focus on how children learn to talk. His clinical and scientific expertise includes speech and language intervention in children with autism, down syndrome, hearing loss and developmental language disorder (DLD) and his research program on these topics has been supported by grants from the NIH, IES and private foundations. He has authored more than 130 articles and chapters on speech and language development, assessment and intervention in children with disabilities including hearing loss, speech disorder, language disorder, autism and Down Syndrome. Dr. Camarata is a past chair of the NIH study section on developmental disabilities and child psychopathology (CPDD) and past chair of the NIH study section on Communication Disorders Research (CDRC). He was affiliated with the Keogel Autism Research Center at the University of California Santa Barbara and at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), and received the Honors of ASHA for life long achievement and contributions in 2022. Dr. Camarata also received an outstanding service award from Autism Speaks in 2016 and was recognized for significant contributions to clinical translational research by Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2022. Dr. Camarata received a doctorate from Purdue University in 1984 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona. He is currently a professor of hearing and speech sciences and professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and an investigator at the John F. Kennedy Center for research on development and disabilities. He has written two books related to development, “Late Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage” MIT Press 2025 and “The Intuitive Parent” Penguin 2017. Dr. Camarata has a regular blog on Psychology Today and has served as a panel member on the US National Academy of Science, Medicine, and Engineering on speech and language disorders and on improving outcomes in children with disabilities.