Professor Dianne Toe is the Deputy Head of the School of Education and Director of Professional Practice in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Professor Toe’s background is in Psychology, Audiology, Deaf Education and Teacher Education. She has worked in these fields since 1983, with 27 years as an academic at the Universities of Melbourne and Newcastle and Deakin University. A strong foundation in developmental psychology underpins all of Dianne’s work. At Deakin University, Dianne teaches on the Bachelor of Education (Primary) course with a focus on pedagogy, inclusive education and personalising learning. She is a respected presenter in teacher professional development as well as publishing in international journals Her publications are in the fields of inclusive education, cultural diversity, teacher education and disadvantaged schools. Dianne’s research uses empirical methodologies to investigate the assessment and education of children and young people who are deaf and hard of hearing. She has extensive experience in preparing teachers of the deaf and classroom teachers to work in inclusive settings. She has prepared teachers to work with students who are deaf for over 15 years at the University of Melbourne and the University of Newcastle. Dianne has been actively involved in research relating to the development of pragmatic language skills in children who are deaf or hard of hearing for more than 10 years, publishing widely and sharing this work in a range of international forums. Together with Professor Louise Paatsch, Dianne’s research investigates pragmatic skills of students with hearing loss and their hearing peers within the contexts of question-and-answer games, expository discourse and spontaneous conversations.

Professor Louise Paatsch is the Associate Head of School (Research) in the School of Education in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Her background is in oral language development, literacy, and deaf education. She has worked in these fields since 1990 as a teacher of the deaf, academic and researcher at the University of Melbourne, the Bionic Ear Institute Melbourne, and Deakin University. Louise has extensive experience in preparing teachers of the deaf, classroom teachers and allied health professionals to support the language and literacy skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Louise’s research uses mixed methods approaches, including video methodology, to investigate pragmatic skill development, oral language development, speech perception and speech production in children who are deaf and hard of hearing in inclusive settings who use spoken language. Specifically, her research, together with Professor Dianne Toe, investigates pragmatic skills of students with hearing loss and their hearing peers within the contexts of question-and-answer games, expository discourse and spontaneous conversations. Other areas of research include investigating play and narrative development, teacher talk patterns during intentional oral language teaching, and literacy development and pedagogy. Louise has many publications and has presented at both national and international conferences. She has also presented workshops on oral language, pretend play and pragmatic skill development to teachers, teachers of the deaf and allied health professionals.