Laurie M Gauger,

Dr. Laurie Mercado Gauger is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Dr. Gauger teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in language development and disorders. As Director of the UF Reading Disabilities Program, Dr. Gauger oversees the evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents with reading and writing disorders. She also supervises graduate students as they complete semester rotations in the clinic to gain experience and knowledge in working with this population. Dr. Gauger is involved in clinical research and supervises projects completed by undergraduate students completing their honor’s thesis research. In addition to this work, Dr. Gauger works with faculty in SLHS and well as in Education on grants on topics of reading and dyslexia.

Dr. Gauger has many years of clinical experience both in the United States and in Europe, working with children who demonstrate speech and language disorders, including those associated with developmental language disorder, dyslexia, apraxia, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, and traumatic brain injury. For the last 20 years, her clinical work has focused on helping children who struggle learning to read and write. Throughout her clinical career, she has supervised more than 40 graduate students in semester long clinical practicums using evidence-based practice to develop their clinical skills in assessing and treating oral and written language disorders, including extensive practice in report writing. Most of this supervision has taken place in the UF Reading Disabilities Clinic. She has been the director of this clinic since 2016. This clinic provides evaluation and intervention services to children and adults from around the state who have difficulties reading and writing. Working closely with funding sources, we are able to meet the needs of many desperate families in search of help for their children who otherwise would not have the means to receive services.

Dr. Gauger’s area of research is in developmental dyslexia. Recently she completed a study comparing risk factors of young students with dyslexia and developmental language disorders, with a focus on rapid symbolic naming. Dr. Gauger also mentors undergraduate honor’s thesis students in communication sciences and disorders in supervised research. This has been an exceptionally rewarding experience for her because it allows her to not only expose students to the scientific method, but also to provide them with a more in-depth study of reading disabilities. Two students recently completed studies examining relationships between cognitive and reading skills for the purpose of identifying students who are at risk for reading disabilities. These students’ work has been accepted at conferences where they have presented their research. Dr. Gauger is also a member of five doctor of education committees. The focus of the five dissertations is reading.