News & Events

Upcoming events

The Discipline of Speech and language Therapy is delighted to announce its inaugural summer school in July.
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News

Congratulations to Dr. Clare Carroll who won a prize for her poster presentation at the 17^th International Conference on Integrated Care 

Third level students from NUI Galway showcase new social entrepreneurship projects, to read about it, click here. 

Past Events

June 2017

Congratulations to all of the students from the BSc (Speech and Language Therapy) programme who graduated in June 2017. We wish them all the very best of luck!

May 2017

NUI Galway students and graduates well represented at the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists (IASLT) Biennial Conference Celebrating our Profession: Reflecting, Learning, Advancing, May 2017

Congratulations to Ciara Corbett for winning 2^nd prize in the student poster category for her poster on ‘Performance of typically developing bilingual children and children with language impairment on an Irish/English sentence repetition task’

NUI Galway Finalists at this years Enactus Ireland National Competition. 

April 2017

Our final year Speech and Language Therapy students handing in their dissertations.

March 2017

Staff and students from the Communication Sciences and Disorders, The College of St. Rose, Albany, New York.
Pictured: Students and faculty members from St. Rose and Dr. Clare Carroll.

Congratulations to the SLT student society who organised a fantastic graduate night. Thank you especially to our wonderful graduates Colette Gill, Rebecca McConnell, Sandra Brandon, Kristine Coffey, Stephenie Cassol and Edel Tiernan who talked about their experiences after graduation and shared useful tips with current students. We are so proud of our wonderful graduates who are making such a wonderful contribution to clients and the profession. We are delighted that there is such a vibrant SLT community in NUI Galway!  

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Left to right Edel Tiernan, Sandra Brandon, Colette Gill, Kristine Coffey, Stephanie Cassol, Rebecca McConnell	SLT student Society NUI Galway, organisers of the event, and graduates

February 2017 

Elaine Higgins, winner of IASLT prize 2015 2016, at the Lá na Gradham ceremony in NUI Galway on 11^th February 2017. Also in the photo Dr. Rena Lyons and Colette Gill representing IASLT (also an NUI Galway graduate).

January 2017

Minister Leo Varadakar delivers distinguished lecture at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society (ILAS)

December 2016

Tavistock Award: Rebecca O Malley was awarded the Tavistock Prize for Aphasia  for her aphasia case study. Congratulations Rebecca!

November 2016

Dr. Henry Hutchinson Award: Rebecca O Malley was awarded first prize in the annual NUI Dr. Henry Hutchinson Award for her final year dissertation entitled ‘examining the influence of phonological structure and prosody on nonword repetition in typically developing children and those with language impairment.

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October 2016

Speech and Language Therapy becomes affiliated to the Institute for Lifecourse and Society (ILAS): The speech and language therapy team is delighted to be affiliated to ILAS. The research interests of the speech and language therapy team reflect values of person-centredness, inclusion, and the social model of disability all of which are closely aligned with the mission statement of ILAS. The team is looking forward to working with colleagues in ILAS.

August 2016

The 30^th World Congress of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP): Dr. Rena Lyons and Dr. Clare Carroll were members of the Local Organising Committee for the very successful IALP 2016 Congress in Dublin in August 2016. Being involved in the committee gave us a unique opportunity to work with our colleagues in UL, UCC, TCD, and UUJ. All staff in NUI  Galway presented papers. Congratulations to our students and graduates who also presented their undergraduate research in posters – well done to Elaine Higgins, Shauna Cooney, Aideen Naughton, Nicole Guinan, Aimee O’Connor, Denise Mulheir, and Emma Boyle. Furthermore, NUI Galway students and graduates did a fantastic job volunteering  at the Congress. 

Professor Sharynne McLeod visits NUI Galway: We were delighted that Prof. Sharynne McLeod of Charles Sturt University, Australia, visited NUI Galway. We had great fun interviewing Sharynne in a recording studio in NUI Galway about bilingualism and speech sound disorders, the ICF, research with children and families, and the Intelligibility in Context Scale. We plan to use these videos on our undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes. We are delighted that the Intelligibility in Context Scale has been translated into Irish by Stephanie Brennan and Íde Ni Chonghaile. 

July 2016

NUI Galway summer studentship awards: Two fourth year students, Ciara McKay and Orla Gately, completed eight-week summer studentships which were funded by the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences in NUI Galway. Ciara’s project was entitled  ‘An Evaluation of the outcomes of intervention of Three School-aged Children with Phonological Impairments: A Multiple Baseline Single Case Study Design.’ One of the highlights of her summer research experience was a meeting with her supervisor, Dr. Rena Lyons and Prof. Sharynne McLeod. Orla’s project was to examine macrostructure and microstructure narrative measures across personal narrative and fictional retell tasks for 7 and 8 year old Irish children with typical language development. One of the highlights for her was to meet Dr. Marlene Westerveld, Griffith University, Australia, at the IALP Congress. Orla and six of the other undergraduates had followed Dr. Westerveld’s research protocols.

September 2016

Welcome to our students: Welcome back our undergraduate students especially our new first year students. We are also delighted to welcome students who have registered on our two new MSc programmes and our MPhil programme. We are running the MSc in Advanced Practice and Research in collaboration with our colleagues in General Practice in NUI Galway. Modules include: educational research, using evidence to inform practice, clinical teaching in speech and language therapy, clinical teaching methodologies, foundations of assessment, and a dissertation. Our new MSc Childhood Speech, Language, and Communication Needs is aimed at speech and language therapists, early educators, teachers, and social care workers. Modules include: advanced research methods; narratives in childhood; using evidence to inform practice; cultural, linguistic, and social diversity in health and education; supporting children with speech, language and communication needs; and a dissertation.  Both programmes are taught using a combination of face-to-face and online teaching.

 Busy times in NUI Galway on-site teaching clinic: Our on-site clinic is very busy with a packed programme for the academic year. This on-site clinic is a unique collaboration between the health services and NUI Galway. It has the function of delivering high quality services to the public while at the same time providing a supportive learning environment for speech and language therapists in training. We are also developing the on-site clinic as a hub for research. Laura Loftus, our Practice Education Coordinator, Margaret Rodden, our Practice Tutor, and Eileen Murphy, our administrative assistant, work with colleagues in the speech and language therapy service in Primary Community and Continuing Care, HSE, to ensure that the clinic runs smoothly. In semester one our second and fourth year speech and language therapists in training are paired and they run groups for 120 children under the supervision of practice educators. These groups include articulation and phonology groups, parent and toddler groups for late talkers, language groups, and groups for children who are transitioning to secondary school. In addition to this there will be specialist clinics where third year speech and language therapists in training will do rotations e.g., a voice clinic with adults with muscle tension dysphonia, transgender voice, and psychogenic voice; a clinic for children, adolescents and adults who stutter, a paediatric feeding clinic; and a clinic for adults with acquired communication disorders. Our first year speech and language therapists in training are also busy! They attend the on-site teaching clinic for observation sessions and also go to a local primary school where they will gain experience of assessment and intervention under the supervision of Laura Loftus and Margaret Rodden.

April 2016

Celebrating Multilingualism in Ireland: A stimulating event entitled Celebrating Multilingualism in Ireland was held in NUI Galway in April 2016. This interdisciplinary event was organised by staff in NUI Galway - Dr. Rióna Níi Fhrighil (School of Languages, Literature, and Culture), Dr. Stasha Antonijevic (Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy), and Caitlín Nic an Ultaigh (Acadamh na hOllscolaiochta Gaeilge). The seminars focused on why multilingualism is important; new speakers in multilingual Ireland and Europe; language and identity; migration, diversity and maintaining home languages; and language policy for the multilingual classroom. There were also very interesting sessions on bilingualism and language impairment which were presented by Prof Jan de Jong (Universiteit van Amsterdam) and sessions on the speech and language assessment of children who are Irish-English bilinguals which were presented by Dr. Sarah-Anne Muckley and Dr. Stasha Antonijevic-Elliot (NUI Galway) and Dr. Ciara O’Toole (UCC).