He was known as “Dr. Bernie” because of the TV program Stop! Look! and Listen!, which helped children achieve speech and reading readiness. But he was to the UT community a fine scholar, an active participant in shared governance, and a highly respected teacher. After earning the PhD from Purdue University in 1953, Silverstein came to UT as founding director of the Hearing and Speech Center. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology in 1962 and was a faculty member in the department following the 1966 merger of the clinic into the department. He retired in 1996. He was the 1986–87 president of the UT Faculty Senate.
In 1994 he published the NTC’s Dictionary of American English Pronunciation, the first dictionary of its kind to help nonnative English speakers learn American-spoken English through phonetics. The book was available in hardback, paperback, and on audiotape.
The building in which the Hearing and Speech Center is located was dedicated as the Silverstein-Luper Building on April 12, 2004, in honor of the center’s first two directors.