Language Processing Research Group

Current members: Jane Marshall (convenor), Nicola Botting, Naomi Cocks, Lucy Dipper, Julie Hickin, Vicky Joffe, Abigail Levin, Tim Pring, Belinda Seeff-Gabriel, Penny Roy and Chloe Marshall.

The Department has a strong tradition of research into disordered language processing.  Several studies have explored aphasic language impairments and their remediation (funded by the MRC and the Stroke Association). These have particularly focussed on disorders of word retrieval, sentence processing and jargon aphasia (eg Marshall et al 1990; 1993; 1996 a&b; 1997; 1998 a&b; 2001; Pring et al 1990; Robson et al 1998; 2001; 2003; 2004).  The group has recently developed its interest in bilingual aphasia and ongoing work is investigating word finding difficulties in aphasic people who are bilingual in Bengali and English (funded by the Barts and the London NHS Trust).  This work is also exploring the effects of therapy and, in particular, whether therapy given in one language brings about gains in the other.  The now completed Deaf Stroke Project (funded by the Wellcome Trust) explored the language processing difficulties experienced by aphasic users of British Sign Language.  This developed a number of new assessments for investigating aphasia in BSL and has reported both individual and group findings (Atkinson et al 2003; 2005; Marshall et al 2004; 2005).

Another major theme is the application of psycholinguistic models to children's language. The department has recently developed a new clinic for children with developmental speech disorders.  Detailed assessment identifies the underlying processing impairments of these children and provides a basis for targeted intervention (see Gourlay et al 2005; Denne et al 2005).   

The Very Early Processing Skills project (funded by the ESRC) aims to pin point reliable methods of identifying language difficulties in very young children.  Four tests have been developed which explore processing skills that are known to relate to language and communication problems.  These have been administered to just over 200 children aged between 2;6 and 3;6.  These children are now being followed up 2 years later to find out whether they are experiencing language problems and whether the early tests were predictive of this.  At the other end of the spectrum we are also interested in the long term impact of speech, language and communication impairments.  One project followed up adolescents who were diagnosed with SLI at 7 and explored their educational, vocational and social experiences.