Shula Chiat

Professor - developmental language processing

Biography

Shula Chiat is a psycholinguist with particular interests in typical and atypical language development. She has taught in clinical departments at City University and University College London since the 1980s, and has carried out and collaborated in research on developmental and acquired language impairments. She is author of a book on children with language problems, and has co-authored a linguistics text for clinicians.

Research Interests

Shula's research interests focus on the psycholinguistic processes involved in language acquisition - how children process the input they receive to establish the connections between forms and meanings in their language. She has pursued these interests both theoretically and empirically in research on:

• typical language development
• specific language impairment in children
• phonological problems in children.

Her current research focuses on:

• precursors and developmental trajectories of language skills
• the role of phonological processing in the acquisition of words and syntax
• the role of affective and sociocognitive processing in language development
• early predictors of disorders of language and social communication
• word, nonword and sentence repetition as measures of language skills
• differentiation of language disorder and disadvantage

Shula is also interested in adult language processing, and in relations between models of adult and child language processing. She has collaborated in and supervised research on psycholinguistic processing in acquired aphasia, and has contributed to publications and debates which foster links between research with children and adults.

Honorary appointments

• 2006 Honorary Professor, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London
• 2007 Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

Research Grants

• Is language as poor as it looks? Assessment of language potential in socially disadvantaged preschoolers
  With Penny Roy & Barbara Dodd, 2009-10
  Project funded by the Nuffield Foundation
• Very early processing skills as predictors of later language disorders
  With Penny Roy, 2002-2006
  Project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award Number R000-23-0019 (link)
• Evaluation of a novel technique for assessing speech discrimination
  With Caroline Newton and Jana Dankovicova (University College London), 2004-2006 
  Project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award Number R000-22-0748 (link)
• Very early processing skills as predictors of language, social communication and literacy disorders in school-age children: A follow-up study
  With Penny Roy, 2010-2011
  Project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award Number R000-22-4093 (link)

Research supervision

Completed

• 1989 Jane Stokes, MPhil. Language development of Bengali children.
• 1994 Jane Marshall, PhD. Sentence processing in aphasia: Single case treatment studies. (Co-supervisor: Tim Pring)
• 1996 Mary Evelyn, MPhil. An investigation of verb processing in a child with specific language impairment.
• 1998 Jo Robson, PhD. Neologism production in jargon aphasia. (Co-advisors: Tim Pring and Jane Marshall)
• 2000 Lindy Rosen, PhD. Reading words and reading minds: An investigation of linguistic processing in a group of hyperlexic subjects. (Co-supervisor: Tim Pring)
• 2002 Ruth Herbert, PhD. Treatment of word-finding deficits in aphasia. (First supervisor: Wendy Best)
• 2005 Belinda Seeff-Gabriel, PhD. An investigation of sentence-level abilities in children with different types of speech disorder. (Second supervisor: Barbara Dodd)
• 2008 Rachel Rees, PhD. Deaf children's acquisition of speech skills: A psycholinguistic perspective through intervention. (Co-supervisor: Chris Donlan)
• 2010 Marisa Silveira, PhD. Specific Language Impairment (SLI) revisited: Evidence from a psycholinguistic investigation of grammatical gender abilities in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children. (Co-supervisor: Ad Neeleman)

Ongoing

• 2007- Ashwag Wallan, PhD. An investigation of sentence repetition as a measure of linguistic processing in both typically developing and language impaired Saudi children. (Co-supervisor: Penny Roy)
• 2007- Hannah Hockey, PhD. Early predictors of later sentence repetition. (Co-supervisor: Penny Roy)
• 2007- Kamila Polišenska, PhD. Repetition as a tool for investigating children's language development and memory. (Co-supervisor: Penny Roy)
• 2008 - Andrea Dohmen, MPhil/PhD. Investigating non-linguistic and linguistic copying skills in children with typical and delayed language development. (Co-supervisor: Penny Roy)
• 2008 - Mariam Khater, MPhil/PhD. Early phonological skills as a predictor for receptive and expressive vocabulary size in Gulf Arabic speaking children. (Co-supervisor: Chloe Marshall)
• 2009 - Ghada Najmaldeen, MPhil/PhD. An investigation of socioeconomic effects on phonological awareness and lexical retrieval in Saudi children. (Co-supervisor: Barbara Dodd)
• 2010 - Aseel AlKadhi, MPhil/PhD. (Co-supevisor: Penny Roy)

Selected Publications

Articles

• Seeff-Gabriel, B., Chiat, S., & Dodd, B. (2010). Sentence imitation as a tool in identifying expressive morphosyntactic difficulties in children with severe speech difficulties. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 45, 691-702.  
• Gallagher, A. & Chiat, S. (2009). Evaluation of speech and language therapy interventions for pre-school children with specific language impairment: a comparison of outcomes following specialist intensive, nursery-based and no intervention. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 44, 616-638.
• 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.
• Emanuel, R., Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2007). Evaluation of the clinical decisions made for 2-year-olds referred for speech and language therapy: a follow-up study. International Journal of Speech and Language Disorders, 42, 1-15.
• Newton, C., Chiat, S., & Hald, L. (2008). Evaluation of a novel technique for assessing speech discrimination in children. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 22, 325-333.
• 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.
• Chiat, S. (2006). The developmental trajectory of nonword repetition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 552-556.
• O'Toole, C. & Chiat, S. (2006). Symbolic functioning and language development in children with Down syndrome. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 41, 155-171.
• 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.
• Black, M. & Chiat, S. (2003). Noun-verb dissociations: a multi-faceted phenomenon. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 231-250.
• Marshall, C. & Chiat, S. (2003). A foot domain account of prosodically-conditioned substitutions. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 17, 645-57.
• Chiat, S. (2001). Mapping theories of developmental language impairment: premises, predictions and evidence. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16, 113-142.
• Marshall, J., Pring, T., & Chiat, S. (1998). Verb retrieval and sentence production in aphasia. Brain and Language, 63, 159-183.
• Marshall, J., Chiat, S., & Pring, T. (1997). An impairment in processing verbs' thematic roles: a therapy study. Aphasiology, 11, 855-876.
• Ambalu, D., Chiat, S., & Pring, T. (1997). When is it best to hear a verb? The effects of timing and focus of verb models on children's learning of verbs. Journal of Child Language ,24, 25-34.
• Marshall, J., Chiat, S., Robson, J., & Pring, T. (1996). An investigation of semantic jargon. Part 2 - verbs. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 9, 251-260.
• Lee, A., Hobson, R.P., & Chiat, S. (1994). I, you, me and autism: an experimental study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24, 155-176.
• Marshall, J., Pring, T., & Chiat, S. (1993). Sentence processing therapy: working at the level of the event. Aphasiology, 7, 177-199.
• Snowling, M., Chiat, S., & Hulme, C. (1991). Words, nonwords, and phonological processes: some comments on Gathercole, Willis, Emslie, and Baddeley. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 369-373.
• Chiat, S. (1989). The relation between prosodic structure, syllabification and segmental realization: evidence from a child with fricative stopping. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 3, 223-242.
• Chiat, S. (1983) Why Mikey's right and My key's wrong: the significance of stress and word boundaries in a child's output system. Cognition, 14, 275 300.
• Black, M. & Chiat, S. (1981) Psycholinguistics without 'psychological reality'. Linguistics, 19, 37-61.
• Chiat, S. (1979) The role of the word in phonological development. Linguistics, 17, 591-610.

Books

• Joffe, V., Cruice, M., & Chiat, S. (Eds.) (2008). Language disorders in children and adults: new issues in research and practice. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley.
• Black, M. & Chiat, S. (2003). Linguistics for clinicians. London: Arnold.
• Chiat, S. (2000). Understanding children with language problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Chiat, S., Law, J., & Marshall, J. (Eds.) (1997). Language disorders in children and adults. London: Whurr.

Book chapters

• Black, M. & Chiat, S. (2008). Interfaces between cognition, semantics, and syntax. In M.J. Ball, M.R. Perkins, N. Müller, & S. Howard (Eds.), The handbook of clinical linguistics (pp. 290-307). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
• 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 (pp 1-19). Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley.

Clinical assessments

• Seeff-Gabriel, B., Chiat, S., & Roy, P. (2008). The Early Repetition Battery. London: Pearson Assessment.
  This includes:
  Chiat, S. & Roy, P. The Preschool Repetition Test.
  Seeff-Gabriel, B. & Chiat, S. The Sentence Imitation Test.
• Marshall, J., Chiat, S. & Pring, T. (1999). The Event Perception Test. Bicester, Oxon: Winslow Press.

External commitments

Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists: Between 1980 and 2000, Shula was a member of academic committees and accreditation panels of the RCSLT.

Editorial Boards: Shula was a member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics from 1987 to 1998, and is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Applied Psycholinguistics.

Afasic: Shula is a member of Afasic, a parent-led organisation supporting children and young people with speech and language impairments and their families. She has been actively involved as a member of the Management Committee of the North East London Afasic Youth Project.

Association of University Teachers (AUT)/University College Union (UCU):Shula has been an active member of the AUT/UCU throughout her academic career, and held the office of AUT Secretary at City University for a number of years.