Research
The Department of Clinical Language Sciences has a wide range of research interests within the field of speech and language development and disorders across the lifespan. Recent research has focused on characterising development and disorders, developing assessments for children and adults and designing clinical interventions.
The Department has been recognised as providing high quality research. According to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) published in December 2008, the quality of 85% of our research activity was considered to be internationally recognised with 10% of this being assessed as "world-leading".
The Department has a range of high-spec laboratories including a Speech Research Laboratory, a Speech Booth, and a suite of clinical rooms. The Speech Research Laboratory is equipped with an Electropalatograph that measures tongue activity, Vitaflow that measurement speech airflow rates and air pressure levels, a Laryngograph that measures vocal fold activity, and a Movetrack that measures lip and jaw movement. The Sound booth is a purpose built high quality recording room that provides the best possible environment for the recoding of acoustic and physiological data. The clinical rooms provide excellent observation facilities and audio-visual recording equipment.
The Department is within the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences and has access to additional School laboratory facilities. In addition, the Department is linked to the newly founded Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) that provides one of the most advanced fMRI scanning facilities in the UK. Staff in the Department have established collaborations with the Departments of Computer Science, Cybernetics, Applied Linguistics, the Institute of Health, the Institute of Education, local hospitals, and health authorities.
The Department places a high priority on the translation of knowledge obtained from research into clinical practice and in the development of assessment and treatment procedures. We are committed to working towards evidence based practice in speech and language intervention.
The research in our department is organised around four research themes: 1) language development in typically and atypically developing children, 2) adult acquired language disorders and ageing, 3) language assessment and remediation, and 4) neuroscience of language. During term-time, we take part in the School weekly seminars with external speakers and in the weekly internal seminars that provide the opportunity to staff and students to present their own research.
To learn more about each research theme, follow the links below:
Language development in typically and atypically developing children
Adult acquired language disorders and ageing