Dorothy Vera Margaret BISHOP
Dorothy Bishop is Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology within the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. She specialises in developmental disorders, and specific disorders of language development in children in particular (typical and atypical development). She is also well known for her work on research integrity and her many contributions to the popularisation of science.
Dorothy Bishop has a degree in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford and completed an MA in clinical psychology at the University of London before returning to Oxford to obtain her PhD. In addition to her numerous scientific publications in some of the most prestigious scientific journals, it is also worth highlighting several books, written relatively early in her career, such as Language Development in Exceptional Circumstances (1988). Indeed, these have had an extremely important impact on the fields of neuropsychology, logopaedics and developmental psychology.
Dorothy Bishop's research has always been characterised by an advanced interdisciplinary aspect, combining behavioural, neuroimaging and genetic methods to study auditory processing, hemispheric specialisation, specific language disorders, autism and dyslexia. She has been able to bring prestige to a field of science which, prior to the 1990s, was barely recognised as such.
She has also created many methods for assessing language in children, including the Test for Reception of Grammar and the Children's Communication Checklist. These tests have been remarkably useful for clinicians working with children with language impairments and other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, ADHD and various neurogenic syndromes.
Dorothy Bishop is one of the founders of the RADLD campaign (previously RALLI), which aims to raise public awareness of language impairment through a blog and YouTube videos. She is also a member of many scientific societies, including the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and holds honorary degrees from Lund University, the University of Western Australia and Newcastle University.
In awarding this distinction to Dorothy Bishop, the Faculty of Psychology, Speech and Language Therapy, and Education of the University of Liège wishes to honour a researcher whose pioneering work has had a major influence, not only on developmental (neuro)psychology, but also on professionals working in the field of language and communication disorders.
