Rate My Professor Martha Howard

Dr. Martha Howard is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction within the College of Education and Human Sciences at Tennessee Technological University. She is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Special Education and serves as Faculty Liaison for the TTU Child Development Lab. Dr. Howard also holds key leadership positions as Executive Director of the BRIDGES Early Intervention Resource Agency and the Milestones Middle Tennessee evaluation team, both grant-funded initiatives at Tennessee Tech. The BRIDGES agency, launched in 2016, collaborates with the Tennessee Early Intervention System to offer home-based developmental therapy to children from birth to age three with diagnosed disabilities or developmental delays, supporting families and caregivers in Tennessee's Upper Cumberland region counties.

Dr. Howard's research focuses on assessment and evaluation, disability studies, developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, autism, early childhood education, child development, applied behavior analysis, family studies, and developmental neuroscience. She has obtained major grant funding, including roughly $7 million with Dr. Amy Callender from the Tennessee Department of Education for Early Intervention services, and additional awards such as those with Kim Correll. Her grant successes have brought recognition, including the 2021-2022 Wings Up 100 honor for the College of Education and faculty accolades for research funding in 2022. Key publications comprise "Social Validity Assessment: Examples from a Functional Skills Training Intervention" (2020), "QUESTIONING SELVES, QUESTIONING MINDS: U.S. WOMEN'S PERSISTENCE IN DOCTORAL PROGRAMS" (2016), and "“Tell Me More About That”: Meaningful Cohort Relationships in Ph.D. Programs" (2013). Via her roles in academia, program direction, and funded efforts, Dr. Howard advances early childhood special education and regional intervention services.