Professor Anja Lowit

Speech and Language Therapy

Personal statement

I have been a member of the Speech and Language Therapy team at Strathclyde University since 1996 and have been actively involved in research and teaching in this area. My research involves the development of new clinical techniques on the basis of advances in the theoretical field. In addition to contributing to development of analysis methodologies in clinical research, my work furthermore focuses on questions that have direct impact on patient management and wellbeing.

My teaching includes clinical linguistics, where I strive to make complex linguistic theories accessible to students, and more importantly, to highlight the links between these and clinical practice.

Expertise

Has expertise in:

Communication disorders
Acoustic speech analysis
Prosody
Motor speech disorders

Qualifications

I trained as a speech and language therapist at Reading University (BA Hons in Linguistics and Language Pathology) and then moved to Newcastle upon Tyne to do my PhD on acoustic phonetic analysis in dysarthria. I practised briefly as a speech and language therapist in North Wales before moving to Strathclyde University where I have been teaching on the BSc in Speech and Language Pathology since 1996.

Publications

Enhancing dysphonia clinic consultations through a focus on patients' expectations : streamlining and validation of a new tool (ACaPELa-R): Tikka T, Corson S, Kavanagh K, Lowit A, MacKenzie K; Journal of Laryngology and Otology (2018)
A deep learning method for pathological voice detection using convolutional deep belief networks: Wu Huiyi, Soraghan John, Lowit Anja, Di Caterina Gaetano; Interspeech 2018 (2018)
Convolutional neural networks for pathological voice detection: Wu Huiyi, Soraghan John, Lowit Anja, Di Caterina Gaetano; 40th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (2018)
Clinical applicability and revision of the ACaPELa questionnaire: Tikka T, Corson S, Kavanagh K, Lowit A, MacKenzie K; 16th British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology (2018)
What does it take to stress a word? Digital manipulation of stress markers in ataxic dysarthria: Lowit Anja, Ijitona Tolulope, Kuschmann Anja, Corson Stephen, Soraghan John; International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders (2018); https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12396
Rhythmic performance in hypokinetic dysarthria : relationship between reading, spontaneous speech and diadochokinetic tasks: Lowit Anja, Marchetti Agata, Corson Stephen, Kuschmann Anja; Journal of Communication Disorders Vol 72, pp. 26-39 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2018.02.005

more publications

Teaching

I am responsible for the clinical linguistics curriculum for the BSc in Speech and Language Pathology. My teaching includes pragmatics, semantics, grammar, bilingualism and instrumental speech analysis. I also contribute to a variety of clinical modules and supervises students on clinical placement.

Current and past external educational responsibilities include various external examiner positions, currently with Manchester University, and being a member of course accreditation panels at international level. I have also held a number of visiting lecturer posts, such as in Malta or Portugal. I furthermore represented RCSLT in the Education committee of CPLOL (Comité Permanent de Liaison des Orthophonistes / Logopèdes de l'Union Européenne) from 2008 and held the position of Vice President of this committee from 2009 to 2011.

Research interests

My research mainly focuses on motor speech disorders. This includes the application of instrumental techniques to diagnosis and treatment, the investigation of prosodic difficulties and the evaluation of assessment and treatment techniques for these disorders.
Furthermore, I am interested in the nature of other speech problems, such as cleft palate speech, prosodic disturbances across a range of disorders, including autism, as well as the relationship between speech perception and production, and cognition and speech and language skills in degenerative disorders. Recent work also extends to evaluating outcome measures for speech and language therapy, as well as investigations of service delivery models.

Professional activities

Comité Permanent de Liaison des Orthophonistes / Logopèdes de l'Union Européenne (CPLOL) (External organisation): Chair; 2009
Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (External organisation): Member; 2008
CPD Workshop and presentations to speech and language therapists on motor speech disorders and research design: Participant; 2002

more professional activities

Projects

Effectiveness of LSVT in improving communication in people with hereditary ataxia: Lowit, Anja (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2019
Phonetic markers of sentence stress in people with speech disorders: Lowit, Anja (Principal Investigator) Kuschmann, Anja (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2016 - 31-Jan-2017
Maxwell Bequest DTC Studentship: Lowit, Anja (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2016 - 30-Jan-2019
An Evaluation of the Clinical Effectiveness of Voice Prostheses in Laryngectomy Patients: Lowit, Anja (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2014 - 10-Jan-2014
Evaluation of a new service delivery model for the joint voice clinic: Lowit, Anja (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2014 - 21-Jan-2014
Speech factors predicting change in children with repaired cleft palates (Maxwell Bequest - MPhil Studentship SLT): Cohen, Wendy (Principal Investigator) Lowit, Anja (Co-investigator); 29-Jan-2013 - 30-Jan-2015

more projects

Address

Speech and Language Therapy
Graham Hills Building

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