Hannah Anthony

• BSc (Hons) Speech and Language Sciences
• Promoting interaction between mothers and their young children with neurodisability – a phase I study

Children with motor disorders often have difficulties producing intelligible speech and gestures. Parents can find their attempts to communicate difficult to interpret. Speech and language therapists train parents to recognise their child’s communication attempts and to create new opportunities for communication development. Researchers at Newcastle University have developed a mobile phone therapy app for therapists to coach parents between therapy sessions. They are testing the app with eight families and are measuring changes in children’s communication and parents responses during and after the therapy. My study has shown that parents created more opportunities for their children to communicate and were more responsive to their children’s attempts to interact during therapy.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Dr Lindsay Pennington