Improving clinical practice and quality of life

Speech and language disorders are common in childhood and are often associated with long-term consequences into adulthood.

Our research group consists of speech pathology researchers who are interested in improving quality of life for individuals with speech and language disorders.

The overarching aim of our research group is to generate knowledge and evidence that will make tangible contributions to speech pathology clinical practice and to the lives of individuals with developmental speech and language disorders.

Areas of interest

We are interested in the following areas of research:

  • evidence based assessment and intervention
  • speech and language disorders in monolingual and multilingual children
  • speech pathology service delivery
  • stuttering in children.

Our projects

See some of the developmental speech and language disorders projects our researchers are working on.

Children receiving Cochlear implants early in life vary in their acquisition of language.

This series of projects will explore the complex relationships affecting language acquisition by children following early Cochlear implantation and evaluating the impact of specific features of children’s individual profiles, including:

  • cultural background
  • family languages
  • health conditions
  • modes of habilitation
  • type of hearing loss.

It is well known that stuttering can co-occur with other communication disorders and health conditions.

When children who stutter and have an additional speech or language difficulty present to clinics, decisions about intervention can be troublesome because currently available results of stuttering clinical trials research exclude such children for methodological reasons.

To supplement the current treatment evidence base, research is needed that includes children with more complex presentations of stuttering. The aim of this research project is to begin this process by investigating:

  • community clinicians’ perceptions of the constituents of complex presentations of early childhood stuttering
  • experienced clinicians’ management of complex presentations of stuttering in children.

Our people

Meet some of the academics involved in this research.

  • Professor Robert Cowan (HEARing CRC, The University of Melbourne)
  • Dr Aleisha Davis (the Shepherd Centre)
  • Dr Sally Hewat (The University of Newcastle)
  • Dr Rachael Unicomb (The University of Newcastle)

Page owner

E: Department of Linguistics