Project Highlights

The Aphasia Software Finder

 
These are exciting and frustrating times for those concerned with the treatment of aphasia. Exciting because an ever growing body of research and experience shows us that treatment can make a difference. Frustrating because most healthcare systems are suffering financial pressures that mean very few people with aphasia are likely to be allocated enough resources so that they can benefit from these advances – especially as there is increasing evidence that amount and intensity of treatment can be crucial.
 

A feasibility study to investigate the usefulness of language analysis software in speech & language therapy

This new project has been funded by North Bristol NHS Trust through the Product Seed Fund initiative. It will run over 12 months and will look at current software which is available to analyse children’s language and provide details on the types and complexities of grammatical constructions used by individual children. The aim is to identify what features of such software are important to speech & language therapists and will assist them in both setting suitable targets for children and measuring their progress after intervention.

Investigation of the use of Voice Amp with adults who stutter

VA is a device that alters auditory feedback, that is, it changes how the speaker hears their own voice while they are talking. VA returns the speakers voice with a slight delay and with an alteration in the pitch. These changes have been found to help some people who stammer to speak more fluently. Devices like VA have been available for some time but there has been little research into how useful they are in people’s every-day lives.

The communication aid dialogue trainer

There is a recurrent problem that many people with communication difficulties are given communication aids but never use them to their full potential or even don’t use them at all. One of the reasons for this is that it can be difficult for many people to get enough practice in using the aid to the extent that it becomes more effective than other strategies such as gesture, and thus is a functional improvement for them.

The Lidcombe Program (LP) in the Community

This study was designed by the research team at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre and has been running in Australia for a couple of years. The study aims to find out more about how the LP is used in clinics across the world and also whether these therapists, who do not work closely with the research team, can get similar results to the expert LP practitioners.
 

Receptive language difficulties in children

Receptive language impairments are a common difficulty in children- affecting their ability to understand both spoken and written language. This means they have difficulty following directions in class and might struggle to follow conversations.These children are an important population for speech and language therapy as they have been found to be particularly at risk of poor literacy, behaviour and social outcomes.

Prioritising preschool children for speech & language therapy

Resources for children with speech, language and communication needs are finite.  Inevitably SLTs make prioritisation decisions on a daily basis.  Decisions are not always easy and they often go on without explicit discussion.  A questionnaire survey is being conducted to better understand the way Speech & Language Therapists make decisions to prioritise pre-school children for therapy.  It will investigate which speech and language behaviours displayed by young children raise a therapist’s concern and lead to their decision to refer a child on a particular care pathway.  

The lived experience of children with primary speech & language impairments

While there has been research in the area of primary speech and language impairments (PSLI), this research has been predominantly quantitative and impairment-based and the personal stories and voices of children and young people have not featured in the literature.

Examining perspectives on important outcomes of intervention for children with primary language impairment.

Children with primary language impairment can experience broad difficulties as a consequence of their condition that impact on their family life, school, relationships and emotional well-being. For many the impact of speech and language impairments on social relationships, emotional wellbeing and education and employment can be life long.  However, research studies evaluating interventions for primary language impairment have tended to judge the effectiveness of therapies on language outcomes alone.
The research project will address the following questions:

Bilingualism and its effects on the development of English phonology

A substantial proportion of the World’s population is bilingual.  In the UK, the number of bilingual children appears to be rising, with 15.2% of children in primary schools in the UK speaking a language other than English at home, up 1% in 12 months*.  This has implications for the identification of speech and language impairments as many of the assessment tools have been developed and tested on monolingual populations.  Consequently there has been a history of both over and under diagnosis of speech and language impairments in bilingual populations.

The origins and outcomes of persisting speech impairment

Problems making and using the sounds of speech in conversation is the most common reason for referral to speech and language therapy. Children may have difficulties with this aspect of their development for a variety of reasons – for example hearing impairment, cleft palate or cerebral palsy.

What’s it like to be a teenager with speech & language difficulties?

This is project has been ongoing in Bristol for the last two years. The aim has been to explore the views of the young people and to make a film that would share their perspectives with teachers, therapists, psychologists. Despite longitudinal research that identified long-term difficulties with language and literacy, social exclusion and emotional and behavioural we know little about the perceptions and views of the young people themselves.