Ian Gordon Fellow Public Lecture: When learning to speak is a challenge

1 January 2022

Professor Ménard is the founder and director of the Phonetics Lab at UQAM, as well as the Director of the Centre for Research on Language, Mind and the Brain there. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University and is an affiliate of the Speech Communication Group at MIT. Professor Ménard’s research has looked at a wide range of topics in speech production and perception, with a particular interest in child language acquisition in typically developing children and children with different kinds of sensory impairments, including congenitally blind and deaf children.

Her Ian Gordon public lecture explored how modern technologies are helping speech therapists and pathologists to treat children with different speech disorders. She gave an overview of early speech acquisition in typically developing babies and young children, and then explained how this can be disrupted by impairments including hearing difficulties and motor speech disorders. She showed how her research using ultrasound and motion capture techniques is helping speech therapists to pinpoint, and therefore better treat, the particular biomechanical difficulties for each child. She also discussed her research using virtual reality worlds to help treat children and young adults with stuttering in a safe, controlled, and fun environment. Overall, her research offers an exciting window into how modern imaging and virtual reality technologies can be used to help the work of speech therapists and pathologies help treat speech disorders in children. The talk was well attended by an audience including many practicing speech therapists from the Wellington community.

Professor Ménard was visiting Wellington after having been one of the plenary speakers at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, which was held in Melbourne from 5–9 August. Professor Ménard’s talk on the role of visual information in speech acquisition was a highlight of the Congress, which had nearly 800 oral and poster papers. The Congress has been running since 1932, and this is the first time it has been held in the Southern hemisphere. The Congress was co-hosted by the International Phonetic Association and the Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association, with generous support from Australian and New Zealand Universities including Victoria University of Wellington. Professor Paul Warren and Dr Sasha Calhoun in LALS were two of the three Scientific Chairs for the Congress, which was attended by over 950 delegates.