Anja Kuschmann

I am a lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Strathclyde with an expertise in speech problems in children and adults with motor disorders.

After receiving my MA in General and Clinical Linguistics (Patholinguistics) from the University of Potsdam in Germany, I moved to Strathclyde to do my PhD on intonation in Foreign Accent Syndrome. My British Academy Postdoctoral fellowship allowed me to extend my work to prosody in children with cerebral palsy.

As a clinical linguist and speech and language therapist I am aware of the close links that exist between clinical research and clinical practice, and the importance of advances in theoretical and applied linguistics for the development of new clinical approaches. I am a keen advocate of the mutual benefit of research and practice, and this principle underpins my approach to research and teaching.

• Developmental and acquired motor speech disorders
• Cerebral palsy
• Foreign Accent Syndrome

• Prosody and intonation
• Speech intelligibility
• Acoustic and perceptual analyses of speech

My research focus is on motor speech disorders and examines how problems with articulation and prosody manifest in people with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy; how these speech difficulties affect intelligibility and communication; and how current treatment approaches target these difficulties. I am also very interested in how advances in technology shape current approaches to assessment, treatment and self-management in acquired motor speech disorders.

PhD and MPhil students

• Rebecca Wagstaff, PhD candidate: Mechanisms of cognitive and language impairment in Parkinson's disease.
• Mariam Mahmood, MPhil candidate

I am happy to supervise students with research interests involving any area of motor speech disorders. Also, please contact me if you are interested in pursuing postgraduate research on the use of technologies and electronic devices in speech and language therapy.