Speech-Language Neuroscience Lab

Professor McAuliffe is a speech pathologist/scientist with specialty in speech production and perception in healthy ageing and neurological disease, particularly Parkinson’s disease. She co-directs the Speech-Language Neuroscience Lab | Te Puna Pūtaiao Ioio (https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/science/schools/psyc-speech-hear/research/uc-speech-lab/), with her colleague Dr Catherine Theys.

Professor McAuliffe's research career began in the field of motor speech disorders, specifically in speech production in degenerative disease and brain injury (termed dysarthria). More recently, she has applied this knowledge to speech perception and production in ageing, asking how listeners can understand signals that are distorted. The continuum of speech signal change from ageing speech, accented speech, and that associated with neurological disease is of particular interest.

Dr. Theys’ research aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of normal speech production and speech production disorders by combining behavioral and neuroimaging approaches. To grasp the complexity of the speech production process, she uses an integrated approach of neurocomputational modeling with brain imaging and neurophysiological techniques capable of capturing the spatial ((f)MRI) and temporal (EEG) neural correlates of speech. This approach is based on state-of-the-art models, data acquisition and processing techniques, and complemented by novel, custom-developed techniques. The fundamental scientific component of this research focuses on detailed mapping of the neural speech network. This is conducted through the study of normal speech production as well as stuttering and acquired neurogenic speech disorders. Dr Theys’ studies on speech disorders also have a strong translational component. It is anticipated that understanding the neural basis of speech production problems will eventually lead to effective and personalized treatment approaches, with a positive impact on health and wellbeing.