Argument Structure in children with SLI
Related to Froud's work on unaccusatives are Susan Ebbels' investigations exploring the difficulties children with SLI have with argument structure. Ebbels who is combining clinical work with her PhD research, is investigating the extent and source of these deficits in argument structure in children with SLI. Susan's past research interests have been in the areas of intervention targeting difficulties with the comprehension and production of syntactic structures and also psycholinguistic profiling in children with SLI and hearing impairments.
Susan also works part-time at Moor House School, a residential school for children with severe SLI, as a specialist speech and language therapist. A particular clinical interest is in devising new methods of interventions for the semantic and syntactic difficulties experienced by children with SLI. She also co-ordinates intervention within the school for children with speech production difficulties using instrumental analyses, including oral-nasal anemometry and electropalatography. Thus, in Ebbels' work the complementary relationship of bringing theoretical advances to clinical practice, and informing theory with clinical data is clearly illustrated.
