The Speech Language Pathology team conducts research collaboratively and independently. The research primarily involves identifying and reducing functional limitations associated with various aspects of communication and swallowing. Oral video-fluorography evaluations of swallowing are used in patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions as well as head and neck cancer. Research studies in development will focus on genetic and neurological disorders that affect speech, swallowing and language deficits. Some current research activities are addressing:

• Effects of frontal lobe damage on discourse processing

• Swallowing, voice and speech functions in advanced head and neck cancer

• Brain mapping and effects of experimental treatments on language skills in patients with brain tumor

• Natural history of speech, language, swallowing and voice functions in rare genetic disorders

• Instrumental diagnostic procedures in dysphagia (swallowing disorders)

• New models of neuro-rehabilitation

• Neuro-imaging studies in aphasia (language disorders)

• Advanced procedures in epilepsy-related language and related cognitive disorders

• Natural history of swallowing, oral-motor and voice disorders with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies

• Effect of novel drug treatments on speech, language and swallowing in progressive neurological diseases

• Swallowing outcomes following new drug treatments for radiation-induced fibrosis