Welcome to the Children’s Speech Development Research Project!

The Children’s Speech Development research project is directed by Dr. Glenda Mason, Research Associate, Lecturer and Registered Speech-language Pathologist (SLP).

In Dr. Mason’s lab, we are studying school-age children’s abilities to say long, complex words. We want to learn about children across Canada who speak many different languages. Our aim is to find out the ages when most Canadian children can say long, complex words the way adults do.

The way we say long, complex words is related to reading and spelling correctly. Many children who receive speech and language therapy also need help with reading and spelling. The research will help SLPs give better assessments and therapy for saying, reading and spelling long, complex words.

For her research, Dr. Mason’s team designed a way to measure how well a child says long, complex words. The measurement method was made more efficient using Phon1 software, developed in Canada by Greg Hedlund and Dr. Yvan Rose (Memorial University). SLPs will be able to use the measurement method to assess children’s speech production and compare their results to the results from the research project. SLPs will also be able to track children’s progress in learning to say long, complex words correctly.