Rate My Professor Lydia Timms

Dr. Lydia Timms is a Teaching and Research Academic at Curtin University in the School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, where she serves as the Course Coordinator of the Bachelor of Speech Pathology course. She earned her PhD in Speech Pathology from Curtin University in 2014. Prior to and during her doctoral studies, she held positions as a PhD student, academic staff member, and clinical supervisor at Curtin. As an experienced speech pathologist, she has worked with children in private practice, schools, and disability support organizations. Her clinical and academic roles include serving as Director of Fieldwork in the postgraduate speech pathology program. Timms contributes to the Curtin Autism Research Group and the enAble Institute's Disability and Inclusion team, focusing on speech and language expertise.

Timms' research specializations encompass language and literacy development in vulnerable populations, communication in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, the relationship between police and people with disabilities, and investigative interviewing techniques for individuals with limited expressive language. Her work addresses otitis media, hearing loss, and literacy outcomes in Indigenous Australian school children, narrative discourse intervention after traumatic brain injury, and language skills in maltreated children. Key publications include 'A meta-analysis of cross sectional studies investigating language in maltreated children' (Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2015), 'Literacy skills of Australian Indigenous school children with and without otitis media and hearing loss' (International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2014), 'Narrative language skills of maltreated children living in out-of-home care' (International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2020), 'Trial of three investigative interview techniques with minimally verbal adults reporting about occurrences of a staged repeated event' (Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2019), and 'Parent perceptions of an online training in language development' (Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 2021). These contributions have garnered citations exceeding 170 across her publications, influencing areas of disability justice, language development, and forensic communication practices.