Penny Roy

Reader - early development

Qualifications

BSc, MSc, PhD, Cert Ed Psych

Research interests

Precursors and developmental trajectories of language and social communication impairments and psychosocial problems, and relations between these.

The long term sequelae of early deprivation, social disadvantage and neglect for language acquisition, psychosocial functioning and academic achievement, with particular reference to:

• The effects of institutional care and multiple caregiving on early attachments and early processing skills and subsequent development,
• Differentiating the effects of impoverished language environments and impaired processing skills on subsequent language development.

The development of assessments of early language and processing skills including:

• Parental reports of early language development and vocabulary acquisition,
• Preschool measures of phonological and sociocognitive processing skills.

Peer reviewed publications

• Gravenstede, L., & Roy, P. (in press). Phonological awareness and decoding skills in deaf adolescents. Deafness & Education International.
• Hilari K., Northcott S., Roy P., Marshall J., Wiggins D., Chataway J. & Ames D. (in press). Psychological distress after stroke: the first six months. Clinical Rehabilitation.
• Woolfe, T., Herman, R., Roy, P., & Woll, B. (in press). Early vocabulary development in Deaf native signers: A British Sign Language adaptation of the Communicative Development Inventories. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
• Law, J., & Roy, P. (2008). Parental report of infant language skills: a review of the development and application of the Communicative Development Inventories. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13, 198-206.
• Roy, P. (2008). Early institutional deprivation and malnutrition. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 50, 645-645.
• Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2008). Early phonological and sociocognitive skills as predictors of later language and social communication outcomes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 635-645.
• Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2007). The Preschool Repetition Test: an evaluation of performance in typically developing and clinically referred children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 429-443.
• Emanuel, R., Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2007). An evaluation of the clinical decisions made for 2-year-olds referred for Speech and Language Therapy: A follow-up study. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 42, 1-16.
• Roy, P., & Rutter, M. (2006). Institutional care: Associations between inattention and early reading performance. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 480-487.
• Herman, R., & Roy, P. (2006). Evidence from the wider use of the BSL Receptive Skills Test. Deafness and Education, 8, 33-47.
• Denne, M., Langdown, N., Pring, T., & Roy, P. (2005). Treating children with expressive phonological disorders: does phonological awareness therapy work in the clinic? International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 40, 493-504.
• Roy, P., & Chiat, S. (2004). A prosodically controlled word and nonword repetition task for 2-to 4-year-olds: evidence from typically developing children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 223-234.
• Roy, P., Rutter, M., & Pickles, A. (2004). Institutional care: associations between overactivity and a lack of selectivity in social relationships. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 866-873.
• Hilari, K., Wiggins, R.D., Roy. P., et al. (2003). Predictors of health-related quality of life (HRQL) in people with chronic aphasia. Aphasiology, 17, 365-381.
• Sieratzki, J.S., Roy, P., Woll, B. (2002). Left cradling and left ear advantage for emotional speech: listen to the other side too. Laterality, 7, 351-353.   
• Roy, P., Rutter, M., & Pickles, A. (2000). Institutional care: risk from family background or pattern of rearing? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41, 139-149.

Other publications

• Roy, P., & Chiat, S. (2008). Beyond outcomes: The importance of developmental pathways. In V. Joffe, M. Cruice, & S. Chiat (Eds.), Language disorders in children and adults: new issues in research and practice. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley.
• Roy, P. (2007). Educational underachievement in looked after children: possible causes and consequences. ACAMHS Occasional Papers, 26, 9-24.
• Harris, F., Law, J., & Roy, P. (2005). The Third Implementation of the Sure Start Language Measure.
• Harris, F., Law, J., Roy, P., & Kermani, S. (2004). The Second Implementation of the Sure Start Language Measure.
• Rutter, M., Roy, P., & Kreppner, J. (2002). Institutional care as a risk factor for inattention/overactivity. In S.Sandberg (Ed.), Hyperactivity and attention disorders of childhood (2nd ed. pp.417-434). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Assessments

• Roy, P., Kersley, H., & Law, J. (2005). The Sure Start Measure Standardisation Study: (link here)
• Seeff-Gabriel, B., Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2008). Early Repetition Battery. London: Pearson Assessment, including Chiat, S. & Roy, P. The Preschool Repetition Test.

Research supervision

• 2007 - Ashwag Wallan, MPhil/PhD. An investigation of sentence repetition as a measure of linguistic processing in both typically developing and language impaired Saudi children. (Co-supervisor: Shula Chiat)
• 2007 -  Anne Mayne, MPhil/PhD. Narrative, discourse and affective language  processing in secondary school aged children with 22q11 deletion syndrome. (Co-supervisor: Dermot Bowler)
• 2007 - Hannah Hockey, MPhil/PhD. Early predictors of later sentence repetition. (Co-supervisor: Shula Chiat)
• 2007 - Kamila Polišenska, MPhil/PhD. Repetition as a tool for investigating children's language development and memory. (Co-supervisor: Shula Chiat)
• 2008 - Andrea Dohmen, MPhil/PhD. Investigating non-linguistic and linguistic copying skills in children with typical and delayed language development. (Co-supervisor: Shula Chiat)

Research Grants

• (2009-2010). Is language as poor as it looks? Assessment of language potential in socio-economically disadvantaged preschoolers.
  With Shula Chiat & Barbara Dodd
  Project funded by the Nuffield Foundation
• (2002-2006) Very early processing skills as predictors of later language disorders.
  With Shula Chiat
  Project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award Number R000-23-0019.
• (2004-2005) The Sure Start Language Measure Standardisation Measure.
  With James Law and Helen Kersley
  Project funded by the Sure Start Unit London.

Invited lectures

• (03/05) Roy, P. & Chiat, S. Very early processing skills as predictors of later language disorders. NAPLIC Conference, University of Warwick.
• (03/06) Roy, P. Educational underachievement in looked-after children: possible causes and consequences. The Emanuel Miller Lecture and Day Conference, Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, London.
• (06/06) Roy, P., & Chiat, S. Precursors of language as predictors of later language disorders. Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Early Development and Communication, University of Zagreb.
• (07/06) Chiat, S., & Roy, P. Reversing the developmental trajectory. The Child Language Seminar, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
• (09/06): Roy, P. Why do looked after children underachieve at school? British Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) Research Symposium, London.

Membership of Professional Bodies

• Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
• International Association for the Study of Child Language
• Society for Research in Child Development
• British Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), Research Group.