Gloria Soto

Dr. Gloria Soto is a Professor in the Department of Special Education at San Francisco State University. Her work focuses on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), with particular emphasis on multiculturalism, inclusive education, and narrative language development in AAC users. She holds a B.S. from Universidad Pontificia (Spain), an M.S., and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Her research explores graphic symbol use, collaborative teaming strategies, and linguistic diversity in AAC interventions. Recent work addresses core vocabulary selection across languages, caregiver-professional collaboration, and multilingual AAC frameworks for monolingual therapists.

Dr. Soto frequently presents at national/international conferences and has authored over 60 peer-reviewed articles. Her recent publications (2023-2025) highlight advancements in Sepedi core vocabulary validation, code-switching AAC frameworks, and caregiver experiences in diverse educational settings. She collaborates globally, evidenced by co-authored studies with international colleagues in South Africa, Norway, and Sweden. Her work emphasizes cultural responsiveness, with projects like Project Building Bridges training speech-language pathologists to serve linguistically diverse populations.

Key themes in her research include: (1) grammatical development in AAC users, (2) multilingual AAC system design, (3) family-professional partnerships in AAC implementation, and (4) inclusive education practices for students with complex communication needs. She has pioneered methods like the PAALSS protocol for Spanish AAC analysis and developed frameworks for self-created film narratives as communication tools.