Graduate Faculty Profile Jacqueline Towson

Assistant Professor

Research Focus:

Child Language, Language Development, Language Disorders

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Jacqueline Towson PhD, CCC-SLP has always known from a very young age that she wanted to teach and work with young children. She believes, “Helping young children with developmental disabilities and those at-risk reach their full potential is incredibly rewarding – even the seemingly smallest accomplishments are worthy of a huge celebration.” As the assistant professor and graduate program director in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, she is rewarded daily by the progress of her students and the effect she has in educating our future teachers and parents/caregivers.

Her primary teaching and research focus is on child language development and disorders, specifically for toddlers and preschool children. Speech-language pathologists help people reach their full potential in communication skills – skills that are at the core of being human. She has presented at state, national and international conferences on classroom-based interventions for preschool children with significant language impairments.

Her work ethic stems from the advice that she gives to students – follow your passion because working incredibly hard will come easy if you love what you do. She says, “Remember to serve others first and foremost and everything else will fall into place.”

She received her Bachelor of Science in Audiology and Speech Pathology, Cum Laude from Florida State University, followed by her Master of Science in Communication Disorders from the University of Texas at Dallas. She worked clinically for fourteen years as both a speech-language pathologist and an early childhood special education teacher in a local school district, with extensive experience in child language assessment.

Dr. Towson completed her doctoral degree in the Education of Students with Exceptionalities with a focus in Early Childhood Special Education at Georgia State University. Since at UCF, Dr. Towson has also been recognized with the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2018), Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award (2019), and the LIFE@UCF Women Faculty Recognition Award (2019).

Highlights:

• School of Communication Sciences and Disorders Graduate Program Director
• 2019 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award
• 2019 Faculty Excellence - Life@UCF Women Faculty Recognition
• 2018 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award

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