Principal Investigator Profile:

Jane O'Regan Kleinert, Ph.D., CCC

Assistant Professor, Div. of Communication Disorders

Principal Interests

Relationship between self-determination abilities and communication abilities in individuals with developmental disabilities
Teaching self-advocacy skills to students with significant developmental disabilities and severe communication disorders
Learning Characteristics Inventory: Dr. Kleinert is the communication disorders consultant to this project of the National Alternate Assessment Center grant project at the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky. The project is designed to determine the learning and educational characteristics of students who are assessed via the Alternate Assessment protocol for state and district achievement testing.
Developing “virtual patient” modules and media for teaching courses in
pediatric phonological disorders.

For over 25 years, Jane practiced as a pediatric speech/language pathologist, specializing in direct service and administration of programs for infants, children and youth with developmental disabilities, with specialization in early intervention, oral feeding disorders and communication programming for students multiple disabilities. She lectured nationally and in Canada on topics related to interdisciplinary intervention for children with multiple and severe disabilities.

During her clinical career, she provided in-service training throughout Kentucky for a variety of state and federally funded grants and for the KY Department of Education. In addition, she developed training manuals for communication programming for infants and for children and youth with the most severe disabilities.

Since coming to the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor, Dr. Kleinert has taught courses in pediatric language development and disorders, pediatric neurogenic speech disorders and dysphagia, and communication programming for individuals with multiple and severe disabilities. She is the program faculty chair for the Teacher Education Program in Communication Disorders that is conducted in collaboration with the UK College of Education. She provides guest lectures to the physical therapy division and for the Human Development Institute’s Developmental Disabilities Certification program yearly. She is currently the Principal Investigator for the Kentucky Youth Advocacy Project, a two-year, $300,000. grant funded by the Kentucky Council on Developmental Disabilities.

Current Projects:

Kentucky Youth Advocacy Project
Learning Characteristics Inventory
Population Description of Young Children with Feeding and Swallowing Disorders Enrolled in Community-Based Feeding Programs

Jane O'Regan Kleinert, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Div. of Communication Disorders
jklei2@uky.edu