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Staff Profile

Dr Faye Smith

Lecturer in Speech and Language Sciences

  • Telephone: 01912088625
  • Address: School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences
    Room 1.04
    King George VI Building
    Newcastle University
    Queen Victoria Road
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
Background

Background

I studied for a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Reading, Language and Cognition at the University of York. I then stayed on at York and undertook a PhD with Maggie Snowling and Hannah Nash looking at the early linguistic and cognitive profile in children with Down syndrome, with a particular focus on how poor health interacts with language and cognition. Subsequently I completed two postdoctoral research projects; one looking at sleep and vocabulary consolidation in children with and without dyslexia and a second investigating the behavioural and neural links between auditory sequence processing and language/literacy skill across adolescence. I carried out my second postdoctoral project here at Newcastle University, in the Institute of Neuroscience, and in September 2016 I joined Speech and Language Sciences as a lecturer.

I am currently Degree Program Director of the MSc Language Pathology course

Qualifications

PhD Psychology - 2014, University of York

MSc Reading, Language and Cognition - 2010, University of York

BSc Psychology - 2009, University of York

Previous Positions

2015 - 2016 - Research Associate, Newcastle University

2014 - 2015 - Research Associate, University of York

Sept-Dec 2013 - BPS Postgraduate Fellow, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

Memberships

British Psychological Society (BPS)

Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR)


Research

Research Interests

Broadly speaking, I am interested in typical and atypical language and literacy development. I have conducted research with children spanning wide age ranges who have language difficulties, including those with Down syndrome, dyslexia and Specific Language Impairment/Language Learning Impairment (SLI/LLI). I have specific interests in sleep, memory consolidation and word learning, which began during my PhD and developed through my first postdoctoral research project. I am also interested in adolescent literacy skills and links with mental health and anxiety. 

I have experience with neuroscientific techniques, such as overnight sleep EEG and MRI, and my interdisciplinary PhD exposed me to methodologies used by health scientists (e.g. epidemiology and systematic reviews). As such, I am interested in applying cross-disciplinary methodologies to bridge the research gaps relating to the development of language skills in children, particularly in those with developmental difficulties. I am also very keen to promote the links between research, policy and practice. In 2013 I spent three months researching a Parliamentary briefing note on Special Educational Needs, which sparked my interest in conducting research which is relevant to both policy and educational/clinical practice.

Current Projects

Sleep Boost: With my colleagues Dr Vic Knowland and Professor Cristina McKean, we are developing an intervention to help parents support their preschool children's sleep. Ultimately we would like to investigate whether such an intervention could have an impact on language skills in children at risk of language difficulties, given the key links between sleep and language development.

I am also developing a project looking at how we share books and stories with children beyond the preschool years. There seems to be a natural tapering off of shared reading during the primary school years but there is not yet a good understanding of why this happens or if it would be beneficial for some children if we extended the typical period of shared reading.


Teaching

SPE1056: Brain and Behaviour Across the Lifespan I: Introduction to Psychology and Social Interaction

SPE3055: Brain and Behaviour III: Neuropsychology and Psychiatric Disorders

Publications