Uma Soman
PhD, LSLS Cert AVEd
Co-Founder & Director
Uma Soman is an educator of students who are deaf-and-hard-of-hearing (DHH) and a certified Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Auditory-Verbal Educator (LSLS Cert AVEd). She has been working with children who are DHH, their families, and professionals who work with them for over 20 years in a variety of settings. Dr. Soman has been an invited speaker at regional, national, and international conferences. Additionally, she is passionate about working with schools and centers to empower staff members to engage in best practices related to listening and spoken language development of DHH children through family-centered intervention.
Dr. Soman provides listening and spoken language intervention to children and families in the USA and India. She also provides mainstream support for children who are DHH and their families, and is available to consult with the mainstream school staff.
Dr. Soman develops and teaches online courses in English, Hindi, and Marathi on various topics related to development of listening and spoken language in children who are deaf or hard of hearing. She also mentors teachers and therapists pursuing Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Certification in India and USA. Dr. Soman presents on a wide range of topics at national and international conferences.
In addition to her role at Listening Together, Dr. Soman is an assistant professor in the Communication Disorders and Deaf Education program at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She teaches courses in language and literacy development to students in the deaf education and speech-language pathology program.
Dr. Soman received her Masters in Deaf Education from the Clarke School / Smith College program and earned her Doctorate in Hearing and Speech Sciences from Vanderbilt University in 2017. She was the recipient of the National Leadership Consortium in Sensory Disabilities Fellowship (NLCSD, 2010-2014). Dr. Soman serves on the board of AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language and is a member of the Hands and Voices FL-3 Advisory Board.