Background
I am a qualified speech-language therapist and completed my DPhil in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford in 2004, supervised by Professor Dorothy Bishop. My research focuses on language disorders across a range of clinical conditions and how Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) relates to social, academic, and cognitive development over time. I am the Principal Investigator of the Surrey Communication and Language is Education Study (SCALES), which is one of only three epidemiological studies of language disorder in the world (the last one published in North America in 1997) and the first in the UK to document the number of children starting mainstream school with a clinically and educationally significant language disorder. We estimated 7.58% of children had DLD and a further 2.34% had language disorder associated with another biomedical condition. Our longitudinal findings indicate that identification of DLD in the first year of school is reliable and unlikely to spontaneously resolve.
Current Positions Held
- 2019-present Professor II, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
- 2016-present Professor, Developmental Disorders of Language and Communication, Psychology & Language Sciences, University College London
Courses Taught
SPED4400: Developmental Language Disorders
Education/Qualifications
- 2001-2004 DPhil, Experimental Psychology. University of Oxford. Supervisor: Professor Dorothy V.M. Bishop, FRS
- 1996-1998 Master of Science (with Distinction), Clinical City University, London Communication Sciences (leading to qualification as Speech-Language Therapist)
- 1988-1992 Bachelor of Arts (with Distinction), University of New Mexico, Communication Disorders (minor in Special Education). USA
- 1998-present Health Professions Council (current registration; SL05123)
- 1996-present Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (current registration)
Prizes, Awards and other Honours
2017-18 Teaching Award nomination for ‘Inspirational Teaching’, UCL Student Union
2017-18 Prize Lecture, Experimental Psychology Society of Great Britain
2017-18 Fellowship, Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists
2016 Visiting Research Fellow, University of Hong Kong
2016 Mid-Career Fellowship, British Academy
2015 Visiting Research Fellow, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
2011 College Excellence Teaching Prize, Royal Holloway, University of London
2010 Finalist, Michael Young Prize, ESRC and Michael Young Foundation
2006 Science Media Fellowship, British Science Association
2004 Neil O’Connor Award, British Psychological Society
2004 New Career Development Fellowship, Nuffield Foundation
2001 PhD Prize Studentship, Wellcome
Grants Awarded
- 2018-2021 ESRC Project Grant (PI). Predictive Relationships between Language and Social, Emotional and Mental Health. £942,047 (fEC).
- 2018-2021 ESRC Doctoral Studentship/Action for Stammering Children (Supervisor). Association between stammering and mental health.
- 2018-2018 British Academy Visiting Fellowship (Mentor; Fellow: Dr. Shaun Goh, Singapore). Predictive relationships between language and social, emotional and mental health outcomes
- 2016-2016 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (Fellow). Social communication disorder: links to language and educational well-being
- 2016-2019 ESRC project grant (Co-I). Memory consolidation in typical and atypical development
- 2016-2019 ESRC Doctoral Studentship (Supervisor). Speech as predictor of language outcomes in minimally verbal children with autism
- 2013-2016 Waterloo Foundation Studentship matched funding (Supervisor). Using gesture to support language and literacy.
- 2012-2016 Wellcome Project Grant (PI). Specific language impairment and co-morbidity: development over the first three years of schooling.£507,698.
- 2012-2014 Nuffield Foundation Project Grant (Co-I). Learning Abstract Concepts: The Role of Linguistic and Affective Development.
- 2010-2013 ESRC New Investigator Award (PI). Eye Say: Investigating language production processes in typical and atypical development.
- 2004-2007 Nuffield Foundation New Career Development Fellowship (PI). Social Well-Being: Tracking the Links to Language.
- 2001-2004 Wellcome Trust Prize Studentship (Student). Pragmatic Language Impairment: Where Autism meets Specific Language Impairment.