Journal article

Speech-language pathology insights into genetics and neuroscience: Beyond surface behaviour

A Morgan

International Journal of Speech Language Pathology | Published : 2013

Abstract

For almost a century, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have worked at refining communication disorder phenotypes. Yet a hundred years of mastering the characterization of surface behaviours has provided only limited understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of communication disorder. Arguably, the most momentous aetiological findings in speech-language pathology have been made relatively recently and by cross-disciplinary colleagues in the fields of molecular genetics and neuroimaging. Such findings include discovery of FOXP2, for example, the first gene found to be associated with a primary speech disorder. New gene-brain-behaviour discoveries in communication disorder are occur..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the Speech Pathology Australia 2012 Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture Award. Personal (607315) and Centre of Research Excellence grants in Child Language (1023493) and Moving Ahead Communication after Traumatic Brain Injury (1023043) support provided by the National Health and Medical Research Council and Project Grant support from the Australian Research Council (DP120100285) is also acknowledged. Sincere thanks to Dr Michael Hildebrand, Epilepsy Research Centre, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Victoria 3084, Australia for valuable input on the genetic methods section of this manuscript.