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My main areas of research interests are language development and impairment in children and young people, especially marginalized and vulnerable groups. I am currently conducting research with male young offenders and looked-after children and young people, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am also interested in developmental dyslexia and literacy in children and young people. I supervise MSc and PhD theses in the above areas

Active Research Interests:

• Language Impairment in children and young people
• Language abilities of marginalized and vulnerable groups, including young offenders and looked-after children and young people, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds
• Genetics of Language Impairment
• Developmental dyslexia
• Syntactic and morphological abilities in typically developing children
• Linguistic differentiation of written texts
• SLT Service delivery for marginalized and vulnerable groups

Research Methods:

• Quantitative language and communication assessment
• Qualitative syntactic and morphological analysis
• Interview as a research technique

Research Grants & Contracts Funding:

Carol Spragge Endowment Award, £12,000, SLT Intervention with vulnerable children and their families, November 2015.

²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø Knowledge Exchange, £3000, SLT intervention on a young offender’s institution, October 2015

Carol Spragge Personal Endowment: Intervention with Language and Social Disadvantage, £4000, March 2014-March 2018.

Clark, A & Hartley, K. Audit of SLT services in Scotland’s Criminal Justice System, £2,500, Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø, £2,500, 2012

Bremner, L. & Clark, A., £1112, Multimedia resources for Teaching Clinical Skills to SLT students Masters, HEA grant application. ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø Project Investment Fund, 2009.

Paediatric language impairment and delay, developmental dyslexia, language and communication in marginalised and vulnerable groups, grammatical development and clinical analysis, genetics of language impairment, professional and clinical practice, telehealth, social and communication skills for SLTs, childhood aphasia.

External Examiner, 2009-2014, BSc Honours in Human Communication Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester.

Program Leader:

• Post-graduate Diploma/MSc in Speech and Language Therapy

RCSLT Special Interest Group for Specific Language Impairment in Scotland, Secretary, 2007-present

British Association of Clinical Linguistics, Chair 2011-12

RCSLT Special Interest Group for Justice in Scotland, Secretary, 2011- present

Member of Communicating Justice Coalition, January 2011- present

Member of Senate (²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø) December 2014 for 3 years

Member of NHS Lothian Care group for Language and Literacy, 2015 onwards    

Representative for Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists at The Treatment of Vulnerable Witnesses Conference, Edinburgh, 17-18th June 2016.

Representative for Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists at Scottish Child Law Centre’s Youth Justice Scotland conference, Edinburgh, 11th September 2015.

Provision of Training Workshops to panel members and Safeguarders within the Children’s Hearing Panels System: Communication Difficulties in Children, May 2013.

Representative for Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists at Scottish Child Law Centre’s Children’s Hearings conference, ‘The Changes and the Challenges: The New Children's Hearings(Scotland) Act 2011’, Edinburgh, 22nd Feb, 2013.

Invited Session Chair at The CASTANG Foundation workshop, Disordered Auditory Processing in the Child: nature, Assessment and Intervention: a multidisciplinary approach, March 2012, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh and ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø.

Live discussion on BBC Radio Scotland ‘Good Morning Scotland’, Mobile technology and its impact of child language development, March 2012.