Carol-Anne Murphy is a senior lecturer in speech and language therapy in the School of Allied Health, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences at University of Limerick, (UL). She leads the child speech, language and communication needs research group within the school of allied health and is a member of the HIST_HRI management group. The SLCN group are particularly interested in inter-professional collaborations and partnership between health and education to support children in schools and to develop ecologically valid primary, secondary and tertiary level preventative interventions (alternatively referred to as universal, targeted and specialist levels of service delivery in the education setting). Carol-Anne has a particular interest in understanding mechanisms of intervention, effective approaches to assessment, and intervention implementation in developmental communication difficulties particularly developmental language disorder (DLD). She was a member of Catalise, an international consortium, which developed consensus on identification of and terminology for developmental language disorder and co-authored an IASLT position statement on DLD in 2017. She is currently leading an NCSE funded project to pilot and evaluate building schools' capacity to support SLCN. She has been involved as PI or collaborator in other successful grant applications including a Health Research Board Fellowship to complete doctoral studies on Profiles of Sentence Production in children with Specific Language Impairment (2013), an EU COST Action, IS1406 (2015-2019), ‘Enhancing children's oral language skills across Europe and beyond-a collaboration focusing on interventions for children with difficulties learning their first language' and a recent HRB Covid Rapid Response project currently underway with the HIST_HRI research cluster. She was Vice-chair of Working Group one of the COST action who addressed theoretical underpinnings of intervention and co-edited a book (publisher Routledge), which mapped theory, practice and service delivery in child language intervention across Europe, and reflected services in individual countries.
Research Interests
Developmental Language Disorders (DLDs); Intervention Mechanisms; Assessment tools including dynamic assessment. Leads the SLCN (Speech, language and communication needs) research group (https://www.ul.ie/schoolalliedhealth/content/research-groups) in the School of Allied Health, UL, who are particularly interested in collaborative practice to achieve best outcomes for children with SLCN in schools. Member of HIST_HRI management committee. Was vice-chair of Working Group 1 of COST Action IS1406 'Enhancing children's oral language skills across Europe and beyond-a collaboration focusing on interventions for children with difficulties learning their first language' (2015-2019). This work had examined intervention practices and service delivery for children with DLD across Europe and beyond . Currently leading an NCSE funded project to build schools' capacity to support children with SLCN. Developed a tool for capturing sentence production difficulties in children. The story retell tool (Captain Grey and the Greedy Aliens) has been designed based on theory of underlying linguistic and processing deficits in DLD and to provide greater ecological validity than single sentence based tasks. Supervising research post-graduate students examining SLTs working in the school context, dynamic assessment of narrative in children with Developmental Language Disorder and peer-mediated intervention for autistic children who are described as minimally verbal. Was a member of the Catalise consortium, lead by Professor Dorothy Bishop, achieving consensus on identification of and terminology for developmental language disorder. Co-author of IASLT (2017) position statement and guidance document on Developmental language disorder.
The Influence of Quantitative Intervention Dosage on Oral Language Outcomes for Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis.
The characteristics, life circumstances and self-concept of 13 year olds with and without disabilities in Ireland: A secondary analysis of the Growing up in Ireland (GUI) study
Why Clinicians Choose Their Language Intervention Approach: An International Perspective on Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Disorder.
Moving Beyond Traditional Understandings of Evidence-Based Practice: A Total Evidence and Knowledge Approach (TEKA) to Treatment Evaluation and Clinical Decision Making in Speech-Language Pathology
