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Communication Sciences and Disorders

Faculty

Melcher Life Sciences
3871 Holman St. Room M242
Houston, TX 77204-6018

Phone: 713.743.2897
Fax: 713.743.2926  

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Monique T. Mills, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-CL

Dr. Monique Mills

Associate Professor
Phone: 713.743.7020
Email: mtmills@uh.edu
Office: Melcher Life Sciences M245A
Curriculum Vitae | Lab Page

Professor Mills’s research program employs mixed methods to examine the cognitive, social and linguistic resources that school-age African American children draw upon to narrate or tell stories. She directs the Child Language Ability Lab (C-Lab) which is currently engaged in projects examining narrative assessment and dialectal code-switching between African American English and Mainstream American English. Dr. Mills teaches her students about language development, language variation and research methods in communication sciences and disorders.  She believes that her utmost vocation, or calling, is to help humans thrive. In addition to her work, Dr. Mills loves being on her couch, cooking, hiking, listening to music, playing with new ideas, reading, spending time with friends and family and thrift shopping. 

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
  • Ph.D., Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL
  • M.A., Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
  • B.S., Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 

Teaching

  • Research and Critical Thinking (COMD 6261)
  • Special Topics: Code-Switching and Linguistic Justice (COMD 3396)
  • Special Topics: Communication Screening and Community Engagement (COMD 3396)
  • Language Development (COMD 2339)

Research Interests

  • African American English
  • Educational disparities
  • Narrative assessment
  • School-age children
For more information, view Dr. Mills’s research page and lab page.

Research Grants

(past 5 years)

  • 2023 – 2024 ASHFoundation New Century Scholars Research Grant. Listening and Learning in a Second Dialect: An Eye-Tracking Study. Role: Principal Investigator.
  • 2023 – 2024 National Institutes of Health Diversity Supplement 3R21DC019997-01A1S1. Language Processing in Children and Their Parents. Role: Principal Investigator. 8/21-2023 – 8/20/2024.
  • 2022 – 2024 National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIH/NIDCD) 1R21DC019997-01A1. Dialect Detection in School-age Black Children: An Eye-tracking Study. Role: Principal Investigator.
  • 2020 University of Houston – Women of Color Stimulus Research Grant, Assessing Black Students’ Narrative Language: Emic & Etic Perceptions, Role: Principal Investigator

Selected Publications

(for full list of publications, see CV and Google Scholar profile)

  • Greer, T., Lapka, S., & Mills, M. T. (2024). The influence of linguistic profiling on perceived employability: A new application of the Systems Theory Framework of career development. Career Development International, 29, 352-366.
  • Johnson, K. N., & Mills, M. T. (2023). Exploratory examination of speech disfluencies in spoken narrative samples of school-age bidialectal children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 32, 1182-1194. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_AJSLP-21-00158
  • Mills, M. T., Balz, M., & Price, D. (2023). Accepted. Implementing strengths-based dialogue to reframe clinical education and community engagement. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. https://uh-ir.tdl.org/handle/10657/14964
  • Mills, M. T., Moore, L. C., Chang, R., Kim, S., & Frick, B. (2021). Perceptions of Black children’s narrative language: A mixed-methods study. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52, 84-99. Editor's Award. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-20-00014.
  • Mills, M. T., Mahurin-Smith, J., & Steele, S. C. (2017). Does rare vocabulary use distinguish giftedness from typical development? A study of school-age African American narrators. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26, 511-523. https://doi.org/10.1044/2016_AJSLP-15-0157

Honors

  • Teaching Excellence Award, University of Houston, 2024
  • Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Build and Broaden: Bridging Critical Research Collaborations for Faculty Success in Texas Minority-Serving Institutions, National Science Foundation (February 2021)
  • 1,000 Inspiring Black Scientists in America, The Community of Scholars (January 2021) http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/1000-inspiring-black-scientists-in-america

Professional Activities