Dorothy Bishop

Early life and education Bishop was born in Ilford, East London, on 14 February 1952. In 1975, she completed her Master of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology at the University of London.

She is one of the co-founders of the video-led campaign, RALLI ("Raising Awareness of Language Learning Impairments", now called RADLD), which aims to develop awareness of language learning impairments, including Specific language impairment.

Bishop has published some of her academic work as D.V.M. Bishop. This is to avoid any prejudices that may be held against her as a female academic.

Dorothy Bishop was Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford where, funded by the Wellcome Trust, she led a series of research of children's communication disorders. She retired in 2022.

Children's Communication Checklist In 1998, Bishop created what she called the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC). The goal of the CCC was to help diagnose children who did not have an apparent reason for communication errors. The CCC specifically looked to identify pragmatic language and specific language impairments. The CCC allowed Bishop and other researchers to reliably identify language impairments but give clues to other potential disorders which may not have been apparent such as high functioning autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or Williams syndrome. A second, updated, edition of the CCC was released in 2001.

CATALISE When Bishop began her studies of cognitive disorders, research into language development was relatively limited. Though more research has been conducted, there is not a cohesive framework of research for specialists to rely on when assessing and diagnosing children with language disorders. In 2016, Bishop began a multiple part Delphi project. In this particular project, Bishop was attempting to define a set criteria for identifying children who may need intervention through a multinational and multidiscipline study. In the first phase of this study, participation of 59 experts from fields such as education, speech-language therapy, and pediatrics from several countries including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and United States of America provided a range of expertise and experience. RADLD is an international advocacy organisation, with a mission statement to "foster a substantial increase in international awareness of DLD". Its committee comprises members from the UK, USA, Canada, China and Australia. RADLD provides resources in over 20 languages, and has ambassadors in over 40 countries.

Awards and honours Bishop was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014 for "substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge". Her nomination read:

Bishop is also a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci). She has honorary degrees from Lund University, the University of Western Australia and Newcastle University.

Since 2022, the UK Reproducibility Information Network has hosted the annual "Dorothy Bishop Award", to recognise and reward the achievements of early career researchers based in the UK who are improving research and open research practices. The award includes a small financial contribution and also what they call a "Doscar", which is a Lego minifigure of Dorothy Bishop.

Personal life Bishop married fellow psychologist Patrick Rabbitt in 1976.

Links Her academic ORCID: 0000-0002-2448-4033 Her blog, BishopBlog, received the runner up recognition for the Good Thinking Society: UK Science Blog Prize 2012.