Cluttering is a communication disorder that is often misunderstood and can be tricky to diagnose. The good news is that new information is emerging about cluttering which makes diagnosis more straightforward. With a handful of practical strategies and best practices for defining and evaluating cluttering, we can differentially diagnose cluttering features from other disorders.

Dr. Kathleen Scaler Scott is a practicing SLP, Board Certified Specialist in Stuttering, Cluttering and Fluency, and Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Join her as she dispels existing myths about cluttering and outlines a process for differential diagnosis.

Kathleen Scaler Scott is a practicing speech-language pathologist, Board Certified Specialist in Stuttering, Cluttering and Fluency, and Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA, USA. She has been a practicing clinician for over 30 years in hospital, school, and private practice settings.

Dr. Scaler Scott received the Deso Weiss Award for Excellence in the field of cluttering and the Professional of the Year Award from the National Stuttering Association. She is author of Fluency Plus: Managing Fluency Disorders in Individuals with Multiple Diagnoses and has conducted and published quantitative and qualitative research studies in the areas of cluttering, atypical disfluency, autism and child language and literacy disorders.

Standardized assessments often fail to capture the rich, contextually grounded language abilities of bilingual children, especially those who navigate multiple linguistic and cultural worlds. Drawing from the latest research on evaluation, the Functional Language Proficiency (FLiP) framework reshapes how bilingual children are evaluated in clinical and educational contexts by challenging deficit-based approaches that dominate standardized testing.

Join Genesis Arizmendi, PhD, CCC-SLP from the University of Arizona as she shares how to apply FLiP-aligned strategies to improve equity and accuracy in evaluating bilingual children.

Genesis Arizmendi, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona with appointments in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Cognitive Science. As an interdisciplinary clinician-scientist, she is dedicated to community-centered, representative science that drives systemic change across disciplines and into practice. Building upon over a decade of clinical experience as a bilingual speech-language pathologist, she uses implementation science frameworks to examine the intersection of cognition, language, and academic achievement in bilingual children with diverse learning profiles, spanning typical development, developmental language disorder, and difficulties with mathematics and reading. 

Dr. Arizmendi brings a lived understanding of how language policy, educational systems, and healthcare access shape outcomes for Latino and immigrant populations. Her work is driven by the belief that bilingualism is not a barrier but a strength, and that culturally grounded, linguistically affirming assessment practices are critical to equity in education and healthcare.

The number of different languages SLPs encounter every year makes evaluating bilingual students seem like a daunting task. It doesn’t have to be though. There is a tried-and-true framework that can be applied to any language to clearly determine if a child needs services. In this presentation, Dr. Ellen Kester uses case studies to apply this framework to a variety of languages so that any SLP can see how to conduct effective evaluations in any language.

 Join Dr. Kester as she takes us through solutions for improving the six primary evaluation steps. You will walk away with a new level of confidence in evaluating dual language learners.

Dr. Kester is the founder and President of Bilinguistics, a company that was designed to meet the speech and language needs of children from diverse backgrounds. She provides workshops around the United States and beyond on bilingualism, assessment of bilingual students, and effective intervention practices with diverse populations. Dr. Kester has served as adjunct  faculty at The University of Texas at Austin teaching courses in language development, assessment and  intervention of language disorders, early childhood intervention, preschoolers with special needs, and measurement. Her research and clinical work address the important issue of differentiating bilingual children with typical development from those with language impairment, and identifying appropriate goals for  intervention with bilinguals.