Rich Talk with Young Children

Rebecca Rolland, Ed.D. is a speech-language pathologist, Harvard lecturer, and frequent keynote speaker both nationally and internationally. She believes that conversation is an inborn human need and that great conversations are a human right. Her work explores the power of communication and demonstrates how to build thriving families, classrooms, and relationships.She is the author of The Art of Talking with Children (HarperOne, 2022), a book designed to enhance relationships with kids. The book is being translated into eleven languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Spanish. She has served as an oral and written language specialist in the Neurology Department of Children's Hospital Boston, where she worked as part of an interdisciplinary team to diagnose children with learning disabilities and provide recommendations for parents and schools. She also served as the academic learning specialist at Kingsley Montessori School and as the project coordinator for the Rigorous and Regulated Learning Environment project. Her creative output includes writing for new adult readers and ESL learners, including a novella from Gemma Open Door. She is a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School's Effective Writing for Health Care program, where she was a founding Module Director. She holds an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.S. in speech-language pathology from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, an M.A. in English from Boston University, and a B.A. in English from Yale.