Email: a.holm@uq.edu.au

Research Interests

Alison Holm is a post-doctoral research speech language pathologist. She joined the Perinatal Research Centre in 2004 with a NHMRC Australian Training Research Fellowship. Previously Alison worked at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne on a project exploring Inconsistency in speech production: a description, explanation and intervention for speech disordered children. This research was based on a psycholinguistic model of speech processing and disorder.

Alison completed her PhD in 1999 at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her PhD research investigated the phonological development and disorder of bilingual children. The research described the phonological acquisition of normally developing children acquiring two languages. The research also described the skills of bilingual children with speech disorder and documented the effect of disorder on both of the languages. Alison worked as a clinical speech-language pathologist in Australia and the UK prior to commencing her research career.

Research Projects

Alison is investigating the Communication Outcomes of Preterm Infants with Sharon Crosbie. The research aims to understand the complex dynamic impairments of children born preterm and the impact the impairments have on school performance using a psycholinguistic approach. The psycholinguistic assessment approach has been successfully applied to other groups of children with speech and language impairments. The approach has not been previously applied to the study of children born preterm but the outcomes would have implications at three levels. Knowledge of the relationships between medical complications that affect neurodevelopment and specific processing deficits will allow a better theoretical understanding of the mechanisms of language acquisition. Data on the risk factors associated with different processing problems will allow better monitoring of high-risk individuals. Such information would be invaluable for developing preventative treatment strategies. The Perinatal Research Centre is an environment with the unique potential to integrate medical, socio-linguistic and educational research to increase knowledge about development and improve outcomes for children.

Key publications

Holm, A., Farrier, F. & Dodd, B. (2008). The phonological awareness, reading accuracy and spelling ability of children with inconsistent phonological disorder. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 43, 300-322.

Holm, A., Crosbie, S. & Dodd, B. (2007) Differentiating normal variability from inconsistency in children's speech: Normative data. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 42, 467-486.

Holm, A. & Dodd, B. (2001). Comparison of cross language generalisation following speech therapy. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 53, 166-172.

Contact details and email

Dr Alison Holm

The University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research
Level 4, Building 71/918, Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital, Herston QLD 4029

Ph: +61 7 3346 6013; a.holm@uq.edu.au

Funding acknowledgement

National Health and Medical Research Council Australian Training Research Fellowship

Technique Expertise

Paediatric speech language pathology assessment and intervention

Collaborations

Professor Barbara Dodd

Dr Sharon Crosbie