The Speech and Language Therapy Division is part of the Department of Educational and Professional Studies and is located in the Faculty of Education on the Jordanhill Campus. It is the home of the BSc in Speech and Language Pathology, which qualifies students to practise as speech and language therapists. The Speech and Language Therapy Division aims to equip graduates to enter the Speech and Language Therapy profession and to contribute to the continuing professional development and research base of that profession. The Division has six academic staff who are all involved in the BSc programme. They contribute in their specialist fields which include major areas of communication difficulty such as stammering, voice problems, childhood language disorders, adult acquired language and communication disorders and the effects of the normal ageing process on communication.
The division has many links within as well as outside the Faculty and indeed the university to ensure specialist teaching of subjects. These include:
- Other colleagues from the Department of Educational and Professional Studies, who contribute modules relating to psychology and education
- Department of Applied Physiology and Science Faculty,University of Glasgow, who contribute biomedical subjects
- The many NHS Trust Speech and Language Therapy departments whose clinicians play an integral role in student education.
The staff of the Speech and Language Therapy Division all have strong research profiles, researching and publishing in their specialist fields. External research links include other UK universities, such as Newcastle, Glasgow, and Edinburgh University, University College, London, and Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, as well as the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. There are also strong links with colleagues within Strathclyde University, and with practitioners in the NHS.
In addition, members of the Division have been heavily involved in setting up one of the research programmes of the West of Scotland Research Centre for Therapeutic Practice. This is a Centre for excellence in nursing, midwifery and allied health professions research which was established by a consortium of six higher education institutions in the West of Scotland, including Strathclyde University, and the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Research Unit. The consortium received £3.2 million to fund three programmes: Human Function and Disability, Gerontological Practice and Decision Making. The programmes are inter-disciplinary, cross-institutional and involve strong collaboration with NHS partners. Strathclyde University is the lead institution in the Human Function and Disability Programme.
Recently awarded research grants include:
- An Investigation into Altered Auditory Feedback as a Rate Control Tool in Speakers with PD. Parkinson's Disease Society (£97,446). Dr. Anja Lowit with Prof. Peter Howell, Dept. of Psychology, University College London.
- A Randomised Controlled Trial and Economic Evaluation of Direct Versus Indirect and Individual Versus Group Modes of Speech and Language Therapy for Children with Primary Language Impairment: The Health Technology Assessment Commissioning Board (National Health Service Research and Development, National Co-ordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment) (£735,683) Elspeth McCartney with Jim Boyle, University of Strathclyde; Anne O'Hare and John Forbes, University of Edinburgh; and Pauline Beirne, Yorkhill Community NHS trust.
- The Effects of Adaptive Training in Auditory Temporal Processing in Specific Language Impairment: a Randomised Control Trial of 'Fastforword': Action Research (£136,000) Elspeth McCartney with Jim Boyle, Tariq Durrani and Mike Mattey, University of Strathclyde; Anne O'Hare, University of Edinburgh; and Jocelynne Watson, Queen Margaret University College.