The annual Donald G. Doehring Memorial Lecture was established in 2016 to honour the first Director of the McGill School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, who was instrumental in establishing the School with a strong focus on research and evidence-based practice.
Donald Doehring played a significant role in the early development of our School. "Don", as he was called by those who knew him personally, led the School for its first five years (1963-1968). At this time, very few universities in North American were training speech and hearing clinicians but the need for this expertise was increasing rapidly. The decision to hire Donald Doehring to direct the new school was a rather bold and unusual move because Don was not a clinician--he was an experimental psychologist. This choice was strikingly different from what was happening in professional training programs across North America at that time, which were sharply focused on training practitioners.
Don supervised Masters and doctoral theses on diverse topics and shaped the direction and character of the School through the research leadership and training he provided. HIs doctoral students filled emerging faculty posts within our School and in other clinical programs that were springing up across Canada, often taking on important leadership positions.
Donald G. Doehring retired as Emeritus professor after 29 years of dedicated service. He passed away in October 2015. We honour his immense contributions to the School and his legacy as a scientist through this memorial lecture.
2022 Lecture
Janet Werker, Ph.D.
University Killam Professor and Canada Research Chair. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
"Perceptual foundations of language acquisition: Multisensory Influences”
2022 Lecture
Dr. Hélène Deacon
Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University
"Breaking into reading: Skills that drive children's reading development"
2021 Lecture
Dr. Lisa Archibald
Associate Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Western University
"The multiplicity of cognitive paths and learning outcomes in development"
2019 Lecture
Dr. Rachel Mayberry
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of California San Diego
"For arborized trees, plant early:Syntax and neurolinguistic processing in early vs late first-language acquisition"
2018 Lecture
Dr. Barbara Lewis
Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
"Genetics of Language and Learning Disorders: A New Era of Discovery"
2016 Inaugural Lecture
Dr. Rachel M. Theodore
Connecticut Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Haskins Laboratories, University of Connecticut
"Perceptual learning in language processing"
