Professor Sara Howard, BA, BSc, MA, PhD, MRCSLT.

Department of Human Communication Sciences
The University of Sheffield
31 Claremont Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2TA
UK



Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 2448
Fax: +44 (0) 114 273 0547

email : s.howard@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

Sara Howard is Professor of Clinical Phonetics and currently also an ESRC Research Fellow. After BA and MA degrees in English and Linguistics at the University of Leeds, she took a BSc in Speech & Language Therapy at Leeds Metropolitan University and then a PhD in Clinical Phonetics at Sheffield.

Publications include: Case Studies in Clinical Linguistics (Whurr, 1995) and New Directions in Language Development and Disorders (Kluwer, 2000) (both co-edited with Mick Perkins) and The Handbook of Clinical Linguistics (Blackwell, 2008) (co-edited with Martin Ball, Mick Perkins and Nicole Müller). Her most recent book, co-edited with Anette Lohmander, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm – is "Cleft Palate Speech: Assessment and Intervention" (2011, Wiley-Blackwell. Sara has published and presented widely in the area of clinical phonetics and phonology and is President of the International Association of Clinical Phonetics & Linguistics.

Research interests

Sara Howard´s main research interests lie in the area of the phonetics/phonology interface in developmental speech impairments (especially cleft lip and palate). She is particularly interested in the relationship between perceptual and instrumental analyses of speech production and speech impairment, and in the complementary analytic techniques of narrow phonetic transcription and electropalatography (EPG). She has used these approaches to investigate:

• Connected speech production and word juncture in typical and atypical speech development
• Speech production in individuals with cleft lip and palate
• The development of sibilants and affricates in normal and impaired speech production

Professional activities

• President, International Clinical Phonetics & Linguistics Association
• Associate Editor, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
• Member of S2S (Sound to Sense), a Marie Curie Research Training Network which brings together phoneticians, computer scientists, psycholinguists, engineers and others from universities across Europe with the aim of exploring new ideas about humans use fine phonetic detail in the production and perception of speech.
• Member of the White Rose Language and Interaction Research Group, which brings together researchers from the Universities of Sheffield, York, and Leeds with an active interest in Conversation Analysis.
• Keynote and/or invited international presentations: Lund, 2001; Rolduc, 2001; Lafayette, 2003; Heidelburg, 2006; Aarhus, 2007; Gothenburg, 2008; Madrid, 2009; Geneva, 2010; Tokyo and Kanazawa, Japan, 2010; Charles Sturt University, Australia, 2010; Zagreb, 2010.

Collaborators

• Professor Martin Ball, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA
• Dr Barry Heselwood, University of Leeds
• Professor Anette Lohmander, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
• PhD/MPhil students:
  • Sarah Bryan: The phonology/grammar interface in typical speech development
  • Hui Woan Lim: Phonological Development in a Trilingual Context: Children Learning to Speak Cantonese, Malay and English.
  • Jane Speake: Intelligibility in children with complex developmental speech impairment
  • Rein Sikveland: Interactive-phonetic resources in talk: a cross-linguistic study of English and Norwegian
  • Nisreen Al Awaji: Speech production in Arabic-speaking children with a cleft palate
  • Abebayehu Mekonnen: The phonetics and phonology of cleft speech production in Amharic
  • Daniel Williams: Perception and production of Dutch vowels by L2 learners

Selected publications

1. Ball, M. J., Perkins, M. R., Mueller, N, & Howard, S. J. (eds) (2008) The Handbook of Clinical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
2. Howard, S. J. (2007) The interplay between articulation and prosody in children with impaired speech: observations from electropalatography and perceptual analysis. Advances in Speech-Language Pathology, 9(1), 20-35.
3. Howard, S.J. (2004) Connected Speech Processes in Developmental Speech Impairment: Observations from an Electropalatographic Perspective, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 18, 6-8, 407-417.
4. Howard, S.J. (2004) Compensatory articulatory behaviours in adolescents with cleft palate: Comparing the perceptual and instrumental evidence, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 18, 5, 313-340.
5. Howard, S.J. & Heselwood, B. (2002) Learning and teaching phonetic transcription for clinical purposes, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 16, 371-401.

25 January 2012