Abbie Moran

Overview

Abbie is a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (SLT), currently on career break from the community team at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Evelina where she works in the Early Years team with children under 5 in clinic and children’s centres.

Abbie is investigating the impact of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) on the working memory of children aged 6-10 years, looking specifically at ‘inner speech’ – phonological encoding and verbal mediation. This is the ‘voice in our heads’ that help us to modulate our behaviour, problem solve and of particular interest here, recall information by repeating it over and over to keep it in mind.

DLD is a persistent developmental disorder that affects 7-9% of children and reslts in a primary difficulty with acquiring language. These children have difficulties understanding and using language, and out of every class of 30, two children on average will have DLD that impacts their academic progress. (RADLD.org) Children with DLD have poorer phonological short term memory and self regulatory skills – Abbie’s project aims to investigate how the development of ‘inner speech’ differs in children with DLD from those with typically developing language.

Qualifications

• Associate Fellow, Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom, Oct 2018
• BSc (Hons) Human Sciences, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, 2005 – 2009
• MSc Speech and Language Therapy, City, University London, United Kingdom

Employment

• Speech and Language Therapist, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, 2013 – present

1^st supervisor

• Professor Lucy Henry, Professor of Speech & Language

Publications by category