Fully-funded MSc plus PhD place at Lancaster University

[Alcock, Katie]

Fully-funded MSc plus PhD place at Lancaster University, in partnership with the Down Syndrome Educational Trust, Portsmouth, to commence in October, 2008.

Oral motor abilities: Speech and Language in Down Syndrome

This project will provide funding for a student to complete both the MSc in Psychological Research Methods (or in Developmental Psychology, as preferred by the student), and three years registration at PhD level, subject to satisfactory completion of the MSc. Alternatively, students who already hold a suitable Masters degree are encouraged to apply for funding for a three year PhD place.

Background to the project:

Children who have Down Syndrome (DS) have difficulties with speech and language. Usually these are more impaired than non-verbal abilities for such children, and unintelligible speech, as well as difficulties in constructing meaningful sentences, lead to social, communication, and educational difficulties.  It has also been found that children with DS have problems with oral motor control (control of mouth movements).  It is not known how much these two sets of difficulties are linked. Do children find it hard to speak because they cannot control their mouth movements? Or do children who have poor speech and do not practice moving their mouths while speaking lack the experience of motor control to be able to perform other types of mouth movements?  It is also hard to know whether children's language difficulties are due to their poor speech - difficulty with word formation leading to difficulty with sentence formation - or whether, for example, memory or cognitive difficulties are more closely related to language difficulties.

This project will compare children with DS to typically developing (TD) children with the same mental age, testing both groups of children at three time points on tests of oral motor control, speech, language, and non-verbal abilities.  We will be able to see whether poor oral motor control when children are younger leads to poor speech and/or language when children are older, or whether the link is in the other direction.  

This research will give us more information about the motor, speech and language abilities of children with Down Syndrome.  It will therefore help speech and language therapists, parents, teachers, and psychologists providing assessments and interventions, especially in determining how development might be expected to proceed in these children.  We will also be able to find out more about the possible links between oral movements, speech and language in typically developing children and those with speech and language difficulties.  Research will be carried out in the North-West and in Portsmouth but it is expected that the student will be resident in Lancaster with data collection trips lasting 2 to 8 weeks spent in Portsmouth.

There are now several popular speech therapies being promoted and taught that involve oral motor practice.  Knowing how much early oral motor abilities contribute to later speech and language abilities may also help us to determine whether these therapies are based on genuine links between children's speech, language and oral motor skill development.


The successful student will be registered for an MSc from 1st October
2008 and will receive a tax-free stipend of £14,600  per annum, payment
of tuition fees, and research expenses which will be provided by the non-academic partner.  Stipends may only be paid to EU or UK students who satisfy
the basic residential eligibility requirements.

We welcome applications from well-qualified new graduates or those about to graduate, or those with an appropriate Masters degree. Note that the successful candidate will be required to undergo a CRB check.

The deadline for applications is 20th June.  Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Katie Alcock (k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk) for informal discussion.  

Alternatively contact the Department's postgraduate coordinator for an application form: 
Telephone: +44 (0)1524 594975
Fax: +44 (0)1524 593744
Email: postgraduate.psychology at lancaster.ac.uk
Address:
Psychology Department
Lancaster University
Lancaster, LA1 4YF



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.
To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/info-childes/attachments/20080508/6588ee80/attachment.htm>