The information below is from the official notice, issued by both Marquette University and the Wisconsin Speech-Language and Hearing Association. An additional obituary appears in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 13, 2003, Silverman turned stutter into an asset: He became known worldwide for his work in speech pathology By Amy Rabideau Silvers.
Franklin H. Silverman, Ph.D., Professor, Speech Pathology and Audiology at Marquette University, passed away on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 at 3:00 a.m. Dr. Silverman is survived by his wife Evelyn Silverman, his daughter Catherine Thomas and six step-children and eight step-grandchildren.
Dr. Silverman received his Ph.D. from University of Iowa in 1964. He had served on the faculty at the University of Iowa and University of Illinois. Dr. Silverman began employment at Marquette University in 1971. He was promoted to full professor in 1977.
Dr. Franklin Silverman has promoted excellence in clinical services both nationally and internationally through his teaching, research, and writing. He has taught clinical courses that focused on the management of stuttering and severe communicative impairment during his 32 years on the Marquette University faculty and is a recipient of the University's Annual Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence. In 1976 he taught the first regular university course on AAC in the United States and in 1980 he authored the first textbook on AAC, "Communication for the Speechless" (currently in its third edition). Since 1984, he has been actively promoting the development of clinical services internationally: The countries and territories in which he's done so include England, Italy, Poland, Russia, Japan, the People's Republic of China, Guam, Saipan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Gaza Strip. With regard to the latter, he was an active participant in a USAID funded B.S. degree training program for speech language pathologists, audiologists, and teachers of the deaf from which 33 young Palestinian men and women (most of whose families resided in refugee camps) graduated in July, 1996. His contribution to this program was acknowledged in the fall of 2002 in a feature story on Radio Sawa, the Arabic language radio station funded by our state department that broadcasts throughout the Middle East. His contributions for promoting the development of clinical services in developing countries internationally, particularly in the Arab Middle East, resulted in his being the recipient of an international award in 1998 from the Disabled Children's Association of Saudi Arabia and H.R.H. Prince Sultan. He was the first U.S. citizen to receive this award.
Silverman collaborated for three years with Dr. Dean Williams in the University of Iowa's Stuttering Research Program on an Office of Education grant to develop evaluation and management techniques for elementary-school-age children who stutter. Since 1991, he has represented the interests of the speech impaired on the Governor's Advisory Council for Wisconsin's Telecommunication Relay Service: He also authored the first book on telecommunication relay services. In 2002 he authored the first online college textbook for our field. He is the author of approximately 150 articles in professional journals and more than 20 professional books and textbooks. In addition to authoring the first textbook for AAC courses, he authored the first research design textbook for our field (both were published initially by Prentice Hall). He served for three years as the Associate Editor of JSHR for stuttering and is currently on the editorial boards of two international journals. He is a Fellow of ASHA. His biography has appeared for a number of years in "Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare" and "Who's Who in America."
Dying Well - In Speech-Language Pathology an\hd Audiology, and Related Thoughts on the Middle East, Stuttering, THe Monster Study and Brain Tumors - an interesting interview with Dr. Silverman conducted by Doug Beck 9/29/2003.