A number of 2007 PhD open studentships have been offered at Queen
Margaret University, Einburgh: There are three highlighted topics within
Speech and Hearing Sciences, and contact should be made with staff in
SHS first of all to discuss possible applications, as indicated in the
project proposals below. The closing date for applications is 26 March
2007 . See also on www.jobs.ac.uk and
www.postgraduatestudentships.co.uk.



SHS's own postgraduate pages are here:

http://www.qmuc.ac.uk/shs/pg/default.htm

and the institutional pages are here:

http://www.qmuc.ac.uk/research_knowledge/bursarycomp07.htm

SM12 Voice in the work place: the relationship between stress factors
and voice problems in public sector workers 
Public Health is concerned with protecting and improving the health of a
community, through, for example, preventive medicine, health education
and monitoring of environmental hazards. Voice problems are seldom
viewed as a major public health issue, but there is increasing evidence
to suggest that they should be. Voice disorder is known to be an
occupational health hazard for some groups of professional voice users,
including teachers and call centre employees, and recent research has
found surprisingly high levels of self-reported voice problems in some
other groups of workers (e.g. administrators, research staff). The
impact of such problems on quality of life and ability to work can be
very far-reaching, and there is a need for more research into the
incidence, severity and causes of voice disorder in the general
population. This would allow improved provision of preventative and
screening measures and better health education.

Stress has been identified as a key factor in the development and
maintenance of voice problems. An interdisciplinary approach, linking
Psychology and Speech and Hearing Sciences, would facilitate a specific
focus on this issue.

The study could involve some or all of the following:

a) determining the relative incidence and severity of self-reported
voice problems within various groups of public sector workers

b) analysis of correlation between incidence/severity of voice problems
and factors known to affect voice (e.g. smoking)

c) analysis of correlation between incidence/severity of voice problems
and psychological measures of well-being, stress factors, etc.

d) quantifying the impact of voice problems on work (absence, inability
to perform to full potential)

e) quantifying the impact of voice problems on quality of life.

For further information contact Dr Janet Beck.

SM13 Measures of complex syntax as an index of long term grammatical
problems in young adults with specific language impairment 
Young children typically acquire language without difficulty, reaching
almost adult competence by the time they go to school. However, for a
small minority of children (about 5-7%), language learning is not so
straightforward, even in the absence of any obvious reason. These
children are diagnosed as having specific language impairment (SLI) and
their ability to communicate with others can be impaired by problems
with all areas of language (the sound system, word meaning, word and
sentence structure and/or language use) as well as limitations in their
short term memory.

Genetic and environmental factors are both thought to play a part in the
development of SLI. Recent genetic research has suggested that separate
genes are responsible for problems with the sound system (phonology) and
short term memory on one hand and those with word/sentence structure
(grammatical abilities) on the other hand. So far, phonological and
short term memory abilities have received a lot of attention, with
findings suggesting that this aspect of language plays a critical,
although not essential, role in the development of SLI. This skill is
also considered an excellent way of identifying people whose language
problems seemed to have resolved i.e. in older children and young adults
with a history of specific language impairment. On the other hand,
research into grammar (the other key area of difficulty) has shown that
this language skill is likely to be impaired when the child is young but
may improve as they get older. The key area of focus up to this point
has focused on word structure with the ability to show tense
(walk-walked, where the -ed shows the past tense) being particularly
hard at an age when this ability would be intact in a typically
developing child. So far, more complex grammatical abilities of older
children and young adults with SLI have not been subject to extensive
studies.

This research aims to meet two important gaps in the research so far:
Firstly, there is a great need to look more closely at the complex
grammatical abilities of older children and young adults with SLI to
define their abilities more rigorously, and secondly, there is a need to
discover whether there is a long term grammatical marker of SLI even in
seemingly resolved cases. Both of these findings will also help inform
future genetic studies, as to link genes with language ability, it is
essential for such studies to have a clear definition of what the
language difficulties are and what the long term difficulties are, if we
are to make progress in linking genes with language abilities.

For further information contact Dr Ann Clark or Professor James Law .

SM14 Articulatory phonetic analysis of contemporary variation and
cross-dialectal influences in British speech 
A number of different theoretical questions in the representation and
storage of language can be brought to bear. The topic will involve both
a rich descriptive aspect, and the testing of our novel methodologies
for speech research. The topic would tie in with a number of large
infrastructure projects in the subject area. The availability of new EMA
facilities joint with the University of Edinburgh and
EPG/ultrasound/VICON link between SHS and Physiotherapy provide great
opportunities for new research, and a PhD student would fill a gap
between funded projects which are pursuing a highly specified goal and
infrastructure development, which is very generalistic. A PhD student
would have time to explore and provide an excellent research resource
for the subject area, leading to future externally-funded projects.

The specific phenomena to be investigated could be almost anything in
normal or developmental speech, with a theoretical angle which pushes
for innovation in the area of understanding how we learn to accommodate
to the accents and speech patterns of other people in both short and
long time scales.

For further information contact Dr James Scobbie.

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