Abstract

This volume is the first to deal with Turkish communicative development and disorders, reflecting the use of Turkish by a sizeable population in multilingual settings in Europe, USA, and Australia. In addition to Speech-language Pathologists, the book will be of interest to professionals from related fields such as clinical linguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, audiology, and special education. This book presents a compendium of information about the profession of speech-language pathology, cultural differences, assessment materials and research done in communication disorders in Turkey. It also covers acquisition and disorders in multilingual contexts where there is significant Turkish immigration.

Communication Disorders in Turkish is the most comprehensive overview of this topic ever written. Each chapter author has skillfully translated research to guide clinical practice. Speech-language pathologists and audiologists within Turkey, and in the many countries where Turkish people live, will find the breadth and depth of information to be impressive.

Seyhun Topbaş? is professor of Speech & Language Pathology at Anadolu University, Turkey. She is one of the pioneers of Speech and Language Pathology profession in Turkey; the founder of the graduate programs in Speech and Language Therapy and DILKOM (Education, Research and Training Centre for Speech and Language Pathology) at Anadolu University. Dr. Topbas has developed the first standardized Turkish Articulation and Phonology Test and published on phonological disorders in a variety of books and journals. She is currently on the editorial board of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics.

Mehmet YavaÅ? is professor of Linguistics at Florida International University, Miami, Florida. His main area is phonology and its application to language acquisition and to speech and language disorders. His articles on Applied Phonology have appeared in numerous journals. He is the principal author of Avaliaçao Fonologica da Criança (a phonological assessment procedure for Brazilian Portuguese). His other publications are Phonological Disorders in Children (Routledge, 1991), First and Second Language Phonology (Singular, 1994), Phonology: Development and Disorders (Singular 1998), Applied English Phonology (Blackwell, 2006).

Communication Disorders in Turkish elevates the field of speech-language pathology for Turkish-speaking individuals to a new level. The book will certainly become a mainstay resource for speech-language pathologists, educational audiologists, and even deaf educators who care for Turkish-speaking children and adults with speech or language disorders and differences. It will also appeal to clinical and scientific professionals across the international community, especially those in Europe, Australia, and North America, where millions of bilingual Turkish families have made their homes.