About me: Having completed my undergraduate degree in Modern Languages at Queens’ College Cambridge, I spent seven years working in the Media before retraining as a Speech and Language Therapist. I gained my MSc in Speech and Language Sciences at UCL and worked clinically before returning to academia as a Research Associate on the ESRC-funded Word Retrieval and Development (WoRD) Project. I have a special interest in the design and evaluation of interventions to help support children with language needs
My research: Following my experience on the WoRD Project, my MRes and PhD will focus on designing and trialling a new therapy programme for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and their main carers. I have chosen this area of study because of its functional relevance; DLD is among the most prevalent childhood impairments and poor conversational abilities can put children at risk of social and emotional problems. The intervention has potential to improve the language and communication skills of children involved, thereby increasing their access to education. Parents and teachers will learn strategies to support children in conversation. Broader effects of the intervention will be explored using a quality of life scale.
Supervisor: Professor Wendy Best
Selected publications:
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- Best W., Fedor A., Hughes L., Kapikian A., Masterson J., Roncoli S., Fern-Pollak L., Thomas M. (2015). Intervening to alleviate word-finding difficulties in children: case series data and a computational modelling foundation. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 32 (3-4), 133-168.
- Hughes, L., Masterson, J., Thomas, M., Fedor, A., Roncoli, S., Kapikian, A., Fern-Pollak, L. & Best, W. (2013). The WORD project: a case series study on intervention for developmental word-finding difficulties. Stem-, Spraak- en Taalpathologie, 18, 48-51.
- Best, W., Masterson, J., Thomas, M., Hughes, L., Fedor, A., Kapikian, A. & Fern-Pollak, L. The WORD Project: A case series study on intervention for word-finding difficulties (2013) Child Language Seminar Programme and Abstracts.
Pathway: Linguistics
Location: UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
Email: lucy.hughes@ucl.ac.uk
