Faculty in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders are well recognized for their expertise in wide-ranging areas within the discipline, authoring highly regarded textbooks, scholarly works, and original research articles that have been published in prestigious national and international journals. CSD boasts several faculty-led research laboratories furnished with state-of-the-art equipment. These labs not only support faculty scholarship, but also serve as a welcoming home for any undergraduate or graduate student interested in participating in research activities or in conducting their own investigations.
CSD currently supports the following clinical, educational, and research laboratories:
School-Age Language Acquisition and Disorders Lab
Auditory Perception Laboratory
Directed by Dr.
Jeremy Donai, the CSD Auditory Perception Lab is designed to support research
that exams how listeners utilize information from the high-frequency region of
the speech spectrum during perceptual tasks.
View the Auditory Perception Laboratory webpage.
Language and Literacy Laboratory
Directed by Dr. Michelle Moore, the CSD Language and Literacy Lab explores phonological,
orthographic, and memory processes in language and literacy for both typical and
impaired learning. This work is done with an eye toward finding theoretically-motivated
ways to improve the diagnosis and treatment of language and reading impairments
in children.
View the Language and Literacy Lab webpage.
Speech Motor Control Laboratory
Directed by Dr. Kimberly Meigh, research in the Speech Motor Control Lab is focused
on examining speech production at the level of memory processing. Specifically,
the Lab utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate normal speech acquisition
and transfer effects during motor learning. The goal is to take a theoretical step
back from traditional models of speech motor control to re-evaluate the basic premise
of “what is learned” during speech acquisition, and how this memory is represented.
View the Speech Motor Control Lab webpage
Cleft Palate—Craniofacial Laboratory
Directed by Dr. Dennis Ruscello, the CSD Cleft Palate—Craniofacial Lab is used to obtain air pressure and flow measurements for clinical and research studies of vocal-tract aerodynamics and velopharyngeal function.
Collaborative Assistive Technology Education Laboratory
The Collaborative Assistive Technology Education (CATE) Lab is a transdisciplinary
effort between CSD, Special Education, and Occupational Therapy. In the CATE Lab,
students learn how to select and use a wide range of mainstream and specialized
devices to support individuals with disabilities in the context of educational
and clinical interventions. For more information about the CATE Lab,
contact CSD faculty member
Karen Haines.
Multilingualism Investigation of Language and Cognition Lab
The MAGIC Lab research examines the effects of multilingualism on cognitive and linguistic processing across the lifespan. Ultimately, the goal is to better understand how exposure to multiple languages shapes the cognitive and linguistic system and use this evidence to inform how best to remediate language impairments.
View the Multilingualism Investigation of Language and Cognition Lab webpage