Dr Maria Cairney
Lecturer
Speech and Language Therapy
Personal statement
Personal statement
I am a HCPC-registered Speech and Language Therapist with a PhD in Phonetics. I am a Lecturer in the Speech and Language Therapy team at the University of Strathclyde.
I use speech perception research, acoustic phonetics, and ultrasound tongue imaging to improve communication for people whose speech is often misunderstood.
I am currently co-designing a tool to support people with ataxia have a better telephone experiences.
More recently I worked on the SonoSpeech Cleft Pilot project, which demonstrated that ultrasound speech therapy is feasible and acceptable to children and families.
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Prize And Awards
- Highest scoring abstract by an early career researcher
- Recipient
- 2025
- Meritorious Poster Submission
- Recipient
- 21/8/2023
- Best presentation in the Ultrasound session in SINAPSE Annual Scientific Meeting
- Recipient
- 15/6/2022
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Publications
- Protocol for a systematic review of interventions not delivered by speech and language therapists for children with speech sound disorders
- Cairney Maria Viliam, Kevill Sarah, Cleland Joanne
- International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders (2025)
- Sonospeech cleft pilot : results from a pilot randomised control trial of ultrasound visual biofeedback versus standard intervention for children with cleft palate +/- cleft lip (CP+/-L)
- Cairney Maria, Crampin Lisa, Campbell Linsay, Cleland Joanne
- Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Conference 2025 (2025)
- Naïve listener judgements of speech sound change during speech intervention for children with cleft palate ± lip using a Visual Analogue Scale, compared to expert ratings
- Cairney Maria, Shiramizu Victor, Cleland Joanne
- Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, pp. 1-23 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2025.2571661
- Experience of remote customer service accessibility for adults with acquired speech disorders in the UK
- Cairney M, Fuzesi P, Rai H, Lowit A
- Journal of Accessibility and Design for All Vol 15, pp. 195-212 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.17411/jacces.v15i2.601
- Quantitative results of SonoSpeech Cleft Pilot : a mixed-methods pilot randomised control trial of ultrasound visual biofeedback versus standard intervention for children with cleft palate ± cleft lip
- Cairney Maria, Crampin Lisa, Campbell Linsay, Cleland Joanne
- Pilot and Feasibility Studies Vol 11 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-025-01640-6
- Instrumental articulatory techniques investigating lingual variability in typically developing children : a scoping review
- Smith Amy, Kuschmann Anja, Lawson Eleanor, Cairney Maria, Cleland Joanne
- Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, pp. 1-23 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2025.2486626
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Professional Activities
- 2026 Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (Event)
- Peer reviewer
- 2026
- ESRC Assessor College (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 9/10/2025
- 2025 International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association Conference (Event)
- Peer reviewer
- 2025
- Introduction to using Articulate Assistant Advanced for tongue imaging research
- Consultant
- 6/12/2023
- Introduction to using Articulate Assistant Advanced for tongue imaging research
- Consultant
- 25/10/2023
- Using STAR
- Participant
- 9/5/2023
Projects
- Co-designing audio support messages with and for people with ataxia: a telephone version of the “I’m not drunk” ID card.
- Cairney, Maria (Principal Investigator) Lowit, Anja (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 30-Jan-2026
- Introduction to Articulate Instruments Advanced for recording and analysis
- Lawson, Eleanor (Principal Investigator) Dokovova, Marie (Principal Investigator)
- Hands on activities and demonstrations of the AAA software facilitated in Cardiff Metropolitan University.
- 25-Jan-2023 - 26-Jan-2023
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Contact
Dr
Maria
Cairney
Lecturer
Speech and Language Therapy
Email: maria.v.cairney@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted