Nan Bernstein Ratner

Nan Bernstein Ratner is a professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ratner is a board-recognized specialist in child language disorders.

Her primary areas of research are fluency development and disorder, psycholinguistics, and child language development. She has published numerous research articles, chapters, and edited texts, as well as co-authored textbooks in her areas of research.

Career In 1993, Ratner was appointed Professor at the University of Maryland and served as Chairman of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (1993–2014). She has established major programs at UMD including the Language-Learning Early Advantage Program (LEAP) Preschool Program, Hearing Aid Dispensing Program, and the University of Maryland Autism Research Consortium (UMARC). a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and distinguished researcher and president-elect of the International Fluency Association. She was named Professional of the Year by the National Stuttering Association.

At the University of Maryland, Ratner founded The LEAP Preschool Program which was cited for distinction by MAHE and US Department of Education (1997). Additionally UMD named her “Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year” in 2010.