Faculty Profile: School of Applied Health Sciences welcomes Dr. Raul Prezas

Dr. Raul Prezas is an Assistant Professor at Jacksonville University in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders/School of Applied Health Sciences. Dr. Prezas received his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Prezas holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology and has more than ten years of clinical experience in the university, public school, and home health settings. His research interests include the areas of speech sound disorders, bilingual/multilingual assessment and treatment, phonological treatment models/outcomes, multicultural issues, and school-based issues.

While pursuing his doctorate, Dr. Prezas received the Dora Wallace Hodgson Outstanding Doctoral Student Award and the Delano Maggard Research Award at Wichita State University for his work on bilingual (Spanish-English) phonological patterns and estimates of intelligibility of bilingual preschool children. He also received a Minority Student Leadership Award through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation to support his research. Dr. Prezas, along with his research mentor Dr. Barbara Hodson, are in the process of revising and developing a Spanish phonological assessment tool to evaluate the phonological systems of Spanish-speaking children.

Dr. Prezas is published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, Perspectives on Issues in Higher Education, and Journal of Communication Disorders. He has authored several book chapters related to phonological therapy approaches and bilingual assessment. Currently, Dr. Prezas is working on projects related to phonological patterns of several Spanish dialects and the implementation of a Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach for Spanish-speaking and bilingual children.

Dr. Prezas has previously served on the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech, which included efforts to establish international screening tools and guidelines for speech sound assessment and treatment in various populations. In addition, he currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Phonetics and Audiology as well as the newly formed Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice. Dr. Prezas is driven by multicultural issues and serves on the Texas Speech and Hearing Association’s Executive Council as Co-Chair of the Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Committee. As Co-Chair of the committee, Dr. Prezas leads a bi-monthly article series Titled, “CLD Corner” addressing various topics related to multicultural/multilingual issues within the profession of Speech-Language Pathology.

Dr. Prezas is very excited to be part of the Brooks Rehabilitation College of Healthcare Sciences. We are pleased to welcome him to Jacksonville University and have him join our faculty!