The Bristol Speech& Language Therapy Research Unit are pleased to welcome
Dr Penny Levickis on Thursday 9th April from 3.00 to 5.00 pm to speak on:
Population approaches to identification, prediction and outcomes of children with lasting language impairment
Penny Levickis is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Centre of
Research Excellence in Child Language at the Murdoch Childrens Research
Institute in Melbourne, Australia. After developing a novel mechanism
for the rigorous coding of a large number of parent-child interactions
as part of her PhD, she demonstrated that specific maternal linguistic
behaviours predict preschool language outcomes in a community-based
sample of slow-to-talk toddlers. She is now extending this work to
examine the extent to which maternal responsive behaviours may be
measured in addition to the traditional use of low language status in
the early years to identify those children most at risk of persistent
language impairment. Penny and colleagues are also following up a large
community-based cohort of children as they turn 9 years of age to
develop a risk chart for health professionals to use as a method of
predicting absolute risk of lasting language impairment.
During the afternoon other members of the team at BSLTRU will present
other ongoing research about Parent-Child Interaction Therapy.
Venue: Bristol Speech & Language Therapy Research Unit,
Frenchay Hospital (Yes -this will be one of the last events in the
research unit) Bristol BS16 1LE.
There will be a small charge of £10, payable on arrival to support our
costs. Please contact Fay.Smith@speech-therapy.org.uk for further
details and register
here.
Details of presentations below.
Dr Penny
Levickis
Population
approaches to identification, prediction and outcomes of children with lasting
language impairment
Penny
Levickis is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Centre of Research
Excellence in Child Language (CRE-CL) at the Murdoch Childrens Research
Institute in Melbourne, Australia. After developing a
novel mechanism for the rigorous coding of a large number of
parent-child interactions as part of her PhD, she demonstrated that specific
maternal linguistic behaviours predict preschool language outcomes in a
community-based sample of slow-to-talk toddlers. She is now extending this work
to examine the extent to which maternal responsive behaviours may be measured
in addition to the traditional use of low language status in the early years to
identify those children most at risk of persistent language impairment. Penny
and colleagues are also following up a large community-based cohort of children as they turn 9 years of age to develop a risk
chart for health professionals to use as a method of predicting absolute risk
of lasting language impairment.
Inge Klatte
An examination of parent-child interaction
therapy in practice
Inge is a
Dutch Speech & language therapist completing a three month internship at
the Bristol Speech & Language Therapy Research Unit (BSLTRU). For her Master’s degree in Speech, Language and
Hearing Sciences her thesis is about Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT).
There is a lot of
variation in PCIT approaches: between the original interventions, in the way
they have been examined, and, in the way speech and language therapists (SLTs)
deliver the intervention. This study aims to find the overlapping, critical
components of the PCIT interventions, according to the manuals of the existing
approaches, the literature and the SLTs. Also, via interviews Inge will explore
the rationales SLTs give for the way they structure their interventions.
Dr Yvonne Wren.
Using LENA
to explore parent-child interaction
Yvonne is a
Postdoctoral Fellow of the National Institute of Health Research and member of
the research team at BSLTRU. As part of the research for her fellowship, Yvonne
is exploring the use of LENA, a device for
recording and analysing the speech environment of children from 2 months of age
upwards. The audio recording device is worn by the child within a t-shirt or
similar and records the child’s speech and their environment for 16 continuous
hours. Yvonne will share some pilot data on using LENA.
Prof Sue Roulstone
Understanding the effectiveness of
adult-child interactions as a component of intervention in pre-school children
with primary speech and language impairments
Sue is Professor
Emeritus at the University of the West of England and a member of the team at
BSLTRU. Over the last few years, Sue has led a programme of research called
Child Talk which has examined current clinical practice for pre-school children
with primary speech and language impairments, identifying the various
components of intervention and the related evidence. This presentation will
examine the facilitation of adult-child interactions in therapy in relation to
other components of intervention and in terms of the underpinning evidence. As
well as presenting findings from Child Talk, Sue will present some ideas that
are being worked up as bids for further research funding.
