{"id":17779,"date":"2026-09-08T09:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/?p=17779"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:02:27","slug":"communication-practices-of-multilingual-nonspeaking-children-qa-with-lilly-padia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/2026\/09\/08\/communication-practices-of-multilingual-nonspeaking-children-qa-with-lilly-padia\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication practices of multilingual nonspeaking children: Q&A with Lilly Pad\u00eda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lilly Pad\u00eda<\/em><\/a> joins the URI Feinstein College of Education as an assistant professor of early childhood education with a specialization in special education. Pad\u00eda earned her Ph.D. from New York University. Her scholarship explores liberation for children, families, and communities through the intersections of disability, language, and race. <\/em>
<\/em>
<\/em>Pad\u00eda collaborates with classroom teachers, children, and family members to create frameworks and curriculum for culturally sustaining bilingual inclusive education. Her scholarship has been published in journals such as<\/em> Race Ethnicity and Education; Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability; and<\/em> Theory Into Practice. Pad\u00eda is the author of the book <\/em>Teaching Beyond Spoken Words: Communicating With Bilingual Nonspeaking Children in the Classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were explaining your research to someone outside the field of education, how would you describe it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my research, I look at the communication practices of young children who do not speak to communicate (who schools often call “non-verbal”) and who are also bilingual. Bilingual education as a field often forgets about nonspeaking children, and special education as a field often forgets about multilingual children, so my work looks at the experiences of kids who live at these intersections. I work with families and teachers to figure out how to be better communication partners with these nonspeaking multilingual young children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sparked your interest in your research? And what drives your passion for it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started off my career as a kindergarten special education teacher in the Bronx, New York. In my first kindergarten class, I had six students. Most of them were considered ‘non-verbal,’ meaning they did not speak to communicate. Many of them were both nonspeaking and also came from homes that did not use English. This was the start of my journey to figure out how to create better learning experiences, spaces, and pedagogies with nonspeaking multilingual young children. I went back to school years later for my bilingual certification (in English and Spanish), and ultimately ended up going back for a Ph.D. My passion is driven by wanting schools to be sites of joy, belonging, and open communication for all children, including our youngest learners who are both disabled and multilingual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What questions are you most eager to explore in your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I have been really excited about focusing on the question of how we center young children’s voices in research\u2014and specifically young children at the intersections of racialization, multilingualism, and disability. Too often, our research, including some of my own, centers the voices, experiences, and perspectives of adults who work with and love young children, but rarely do we focus on young children’s narratives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pad\u00eda is author of Teaching Beyond Spoken Words and did a book signing last year at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What will you be teaching at URI? What are you most excited to teach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll be teaching in both the early childhood and special education programs. This fall, I am teaching an undergraduate course on School-Home Partnerships. In the spring, I’ll be teaching an undergrad course on Creative Expression in Early Childhood Education and a graduate course in special education on Co-Teaching and Collaboration. I am also really excited to be helping design new early childhood special education courses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are you reading, watching, or listening to lately (academic or otherwise)? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My 17-year-old stepdaughter had me watching Love Island all summer! I just watched the reunion this week. I’ve also been watching the new season of Ted Lasso (and super irritated that they only release one per week because I want to binge it all!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything else you\u2019d like the URI community to know about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hate bananas but LOVE plantains\u2014even maduros (the sweet ones)! I can’t explain why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lilly Pad\u00eda joins the URI Feinstein College of Education as an assistant professor of early childhood education with a specialization in special education. Pad\u00eda earned her Ph.D. from New York University. Her scholarship explores liberation for children, families, and communities through the intersections of disability, language, and race. Pad\u00eda collaborates with classroom teachers, children, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4629,"featured_media":17771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17780,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions\/17780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}