Dr. Schladant is a Hispanic woman with over 28 years of experience as a qualitative researcher, educator, and clinician focused on assistive technology (AT) early childhood special education, Dr. Schladant brings critical expertise to lead research efforts to understand identification and service access processes for diverse families of young children with disabilities. She is currently the principal investigator on two federal grants and two state contracts totaling nearly $5 million in funding. In her 9 years as faculty, she has published 9 peer-reviewed publications as the first, senior or corresponding author (14 total) and extensively presents her work nationally and internationally. Her extensive research on implementing AT and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions to promote language and literacy development has employs a community based participatory research approach to engage teachers, caregivers and community members in the design, implementation, and analysis of her research. Findings have informed culturally-responsive professional development models and equitable policies to improve AT and AAC access from local to national levels. As Associate Director overseeing strategic planning for the Mailman Center, Dr. Schladant helped reorient efforts towards strengthening community academic partnerships to nurture local early childhood education and amplify their vision towards innovation, impact and connection. Her blended scholarship and systems-level experience in training nearly 100 residents and graduate students annually provide the skills and cultural humility to investigate the intersection of language, culture and service access.
Education & Training
Education
2011: University of Miami , Miami, Florida
PhD, Teaching and Learning
2000: Florida International University , Miami, Florida
MS, Special Education
1995: Florida International University, Miami, Florida
BS, Elementary Education
Honors & Awards
No result found
Teaching Interests
Dr. Schladant's teaching interests include assistive technology (AT), augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND). As the Principal Investigaor of LEND, she oversees the development and implementation of our LEND training curriculum for approximately 100 pediatric residents and graduate students annually. She also continue to mentor and teach medical students, pediatric residents, and other graduate students about AT and AAC. She has developed and taught several graduate courses in the School of Education and Human Development (SOE/HD). One of those courses was a Mailman Center LEND rotation for SOE/HD graduate students in early childhood special education and she precepted 26 students in their advocacy capstone projects. Currently, she is co- leading a Maternal and Child Health and Leadership pathway for the NextGenMD curriculum to mentor medical students in a similar LEND and capstone experience.
Research Interests
In Dr. Schladant's work first as a teacher in the public school system and later at the Mailman Center working with families, I noticed the many barriers to AT implementation, a high degree of device underuse and abandonment, and the introduction of assistive technology (AT) and augmentative and alternative (AAC) as a compensatory, last resort intervention after traditional therapies failed. Her research has thus focused on the need to develop evidence-based AT and AAC interventions for young children to promote their development. To investigate these implementation barriers and increase AT and AAC awareness, she wrote her first grant in 2006 and first received funding in 2009, and her research has been continuously funded through federal grants totaling $4.7 million since 2016. The research team she leads includes two child psychologists, two speech-language pathologists, four education specialists, and a statistician. We are creating and investigating a professional development intervention to coach teachers to use AT to improve children’s participation in early learning experiences. Results from their initial randomized control trial of four preschools in culturally and linguistically diverse communities revealed positive teacher and child outcomes as compared to the control schools. Dr. Schladant received another five years of funding to further investigate the impact of tele-training methods to promote teachers’ AT use in the early childhood setting.
Publications
Disclaimer: The information presented in this section has been consolidated using AI and machine learning technologies. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, errors may occur. If you identify any inaccuracies, please use this link to inform our data team. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and helps us improve the quality of our content.
