Julie A. Washington, Ph.D., is a Professor and Department Chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Communicative Disorders. Dr. Washington's work has focused on understanding cultural dialect use in young African-American children with a specific emphasis on language assessment, Specific Language Impairment, and academic performance. In addition, her work with preschoolers has focused on understanding and improving the emergent literacy skills necessary to support later reading proficiency in high risk groups. Specifically, Dr. Washington's research program is currently addressing the following key areas: 1) the role of cultural-linguistic variation, socioeconomic status, and other social risk factors on language use, and development for African-American students and their families, 2) the role of language in the attainment of early literacy skills by African-American preschoolers and kindergartners, and 3) prevention of language and reading impairments in high-risk preschoolers and kindergartners. Dr. Washington's research program is funded by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the U.S. Department of Education - Institute of Education Sciences.