Bonnie Brinton

Bonnie Brinton, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Brigham Young University (BYU), Provo, UT. Dr. Brinton has worked as a practicing speech language pathologist in school, clinic, and hospital settings. She has also worked as a research scientist at the University of Kansas, and an associate professor of speech language pathology at the University of Nevada, Reno. At BYU, Dr. Brinton has served as an associate dean in the McKay School of Education, and as Dean of Graduate Studies. Dr. Brinton has chaired the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Committee on Language Learning Disorders, and has served on the program committee for the ASHA convention on multiple occasions. She also served as an associate editor for the journal, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools from 1990 to 2000. Dr. Brinton, jointly with Martin Fujiki, has received the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award from BYU and the Frank R. Kleffner Clinical Career Award from the Utah Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Brinton is also an ASHA fellow.

Dr. Brinton has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters and two books. She is a sought-after lecturer, having been an invited speaker in numerous settings nationally and internationally, including Canada, England, China, and Poland. Her work has focused on the social communication skills of individuals with disabilities, with a particular focus on children with language impairment (LI). Her earlier research examined the pragmatic abilities of children with LI. These studies let to investigations focusing on the social outcomes experienced by these children. Dr. Brinton’s research documented that children with LI had fewer friends, were less accepted by peers, and participated in fewer social interactions than children with typical language skills. Her most recent work has focused on developing interventions to address deficits in social communication in children with a range of language disabilities.