Mildred Clara Templin

1913-2008

Mildred Templin was a specialist in child language. Her study of normal children in the monograph entitled "Certain Language Skills in Children" published in 1957, was a definitive work in the field, providing clinicians with development norms for speech and language.

Templin received both her bachelors (1936) and masters degree (1937) at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her masters advisor was Robert West. Her interest then was in the area of cleft palate.

Dr. Templin attended a few summer programs at the University of Purdue and there became interested in children's speech and language development. She was a clinical supervisor in the Purdue clinic, supervising clients with articulation problems.

From Purdue, Templin returned to her home state of Wisconsin to care for her ailing father. There she became a speech pathologist in the public schools of Wauwatosa Wisconsin for three years. Her Ph.D., awarded in 1947 from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, St Paul, was in the field of child psychology with a specialty in child development.

Dr. Templin held a joint appointment in the Institute of Child Development and the Department of Communication Disorders at the University of Minnesota for many years. Her areas of research were in speech and language of normally developing children and the language and thought of hearing-impaired people. She conducted longitudinal and cross-sectional investigations of spelling, vocabulary and cognitive behavior of hearing-impaired people for more than 20 years.

Templin received the honors of ASHA in 1981, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Purdue in 1976, and was vice president of ASHA in 1965.

She was featured in Special Report, Women of ASHA, ASHA, June/July, 1988, vol 30, p. 35 and in the Fall 2008 issue of the newsletter from the Department of Communication Disorders at the University of Minnesota.

Writings

Templin, Mildred C. (1938). A study of aggressiveness in normal and defective speaking college students. Journal of Speech Disorders, 3, 43-49.

Templin, Mildred C. & Steer, Max D. (1939). Studies of growth of speech in preschool children. Journal of Speech Disorders, 4, 71-77.

Templin, Mildred C. (1943). A study of sound discrimination ability of elementary school pupils. Journal of Speech Disorders, 8, 127-132.

Templin, Mildred C. (1947). Spontaneous vs imitated verbalization in testing articulation in preschool children. Journal of Speech Disorders 12, 293-300.

Templin, Mildred C. (1947). A non-diagnostic articulation test. Journal of Speech Disorders, 12, 392-396.

Templin, Mildred C. (1948). A comparison of spelling achievement of normal and defective hearing subjects. Journal of Educational Psychology, 39, 337-346.

Templin, Mildred C. (1950). The development of reasoning in children with normal and defective hearing. Inst. Child Welfare Monogr Ser, #24. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Templin, M. (1957). Certain language skills in children: Their development and interrelationships. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.

Templin, Mildred (1957) Selected references on oreschool, oarental, and kindergarten-primary education.  The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 57, No. 6, 335-341

Templin, M. (1963). Development of speech. Journal of Pediatrics, 62, 11-14.

Templin, M. & Darley, F. (1960). The Templin-Darley tests of articulation. Iowa City: Bureau of Educ. Res. State University of Iowa.

Templin, M. (1966). The study of articulation and language development during the early school years. In Frank Smith and George Miller (Eds.) The genesis of language. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

Templin, M. (1966). Vocabulary problems of the deaf child. International Journal of Audiology, 5, 1, 359-354.

Obituary

Minneapolis St Paul Star Tribune, October 25, 2008.