James Law studied linguistics, practising as a speech and language therapist in the UK for ten years, and is currently Professor of Speech and Language Science, Newcastle University, UK. Having received over £5 million in research grant funding, his main focus has been on children?s language development over time and the science underpinning interventions to ameliorate developmental language disorders.

Cristina McKean is a speech and language therapist and senior lecturer in speech pathology at Newcastle University, UK. She is honorary fellow at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and adjunct fellow at the Menzies Institute, Griffith University, Australia, and editor-in-chief for the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders. Her research aims to understand individual differences in child language development, the drivers and processes of developmental change and the effects of interventions and service delivery models on children?s trajectories.

Carol-Anne Murphy lectures in speech and language therapy at the University of Limerick (UL), Ireland. She leads the child speech, language and communication needs research group at UL, whose work includes the development of school-based speech and language therapy services. Carol-Anne has a particular interest in understanding mechanisms of intervention, effective approaches to assessment, and intervention implementation in developmental communication difficulties, particularly developmental language disorder.

Elin Thordardottir, a certified speech-language pathologist and audiologist, conducts research and teaches in Canada as a professor at McGill University, and in Iceland, at the Academy of Reykjavik and the University of Iceland. This allows her to study typical language development and impairment in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual children in distinct linguistic environments and with a strong cross-linguistic focus. She has authored a number of clinical language measures in Icelandic and French.