Paula Menyuk

Paula Menyuk (1929 - 2020)^[1] was an American linguist known for her research in language development and disorders. She is one of the founders of the Boston University Conference on Language Development.^[2] At the time of her death, she was Professor Emerita at Boston University.^[3]

Menyuk was born in New York City and attended Hunter College High School.^[4] She received her Bachelor of Science in Speech Sciences from New York University in 1951. She worked as a chief language therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital^[5] before pursuing her Masters of Education in Speech and Hearing from Boston University.^[4] Menyuk continued on to receive her Doctor of Education in Psycholinguistics from Boston University in 1961.^[4] She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied with Noam Chomsky,^[1] before returning to Boston University for the rest of her academic career.^[6]

Menyuk rose as a leading expert in child language development and disorders^[7] and eventually obtained the rank of Professor Emerita in the Developmental Studies and Applied Linguistics program at Boston University.^[3] Menyuk retired from Boston University in 1998.^[8]

Menyuk's research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army.^[9]

Outside of scholarly work Menyuk had a passion for safe environmental implementation.^[10]

Menyuk's research focused on the linguistic behavior of children and adolescents, covering topics such as the development of spoken language, prosody, metalinguistic awareness, and reading.^[11][12] Other work examined language development in children specifically impacted by otitis media.^[13] Menyuk's research has been described as aligning with Chomsky's theoretical perspective and centered around explaining how the faculty of language matures during childhood.^[14][15][16]

Menyuk was a Fulbright Fellow in 1971^[17] and in 1989.^[18] Menyuk received the Honors of the Association award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association^[19] and earned the rank of Fellow within the organization. ^[20]

Boston University created the annual Paula Menyuk award^[21] in her honor to support graduate students attending the annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD).

• Menyuk, P. (1969). Sentences children use. MIT Press.
• Menyuk, P. (1971). The acquisition and development of language. Prentice Hall.
• Menyuk, P. (1977). Language and maturation. MIT Press.
• Menyuk, P. (1988). Language development: Knowledge and use. Addison Wesley Publishing Company.
• Menyuk, P., & Brisk, M. (2005). Language development and education: Children with varying language experiences. Springer.
• Menyuk, P., Liebergott, J. W., & Schultz, M. C. (2014). Early language development in full-term and premature infants. Psychology Press.

• Menyuk, P. (1964). Comparison of grammar of children with functionally deviant and normal speech. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 7(2), 109-121.
• Menyuk, P. & Chesnick, M. (1997). Metalinguistic skills, oral language knowledge and reading. Topics in Language Disorder, 17, 75-87.
• Menyuk, P., Chesnick, M., Liebergott, J. W., Korngold, B., D'Agostino, R., & Belanger, A. (1991). Predicting reading problems in at-risk children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 34(4), 893-903.
• Menyuk, P., Liebergott, J., Schultz, M.. Chesnick, M., Ferrier, L. (1991). Patterns of early lexical and cognitive development in premature and full term infants. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 34(1), 88-94.
• Teele, D., Klein, J., Chase, C., Menyuk, P. & Rosner, B. (1990). Otitis media in infancy and development of intellectual ability, school achievement, speech and language at age seven years. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 162, 685-694.

• BUCLD Paula Menyuk Award