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Catherine Aldred is a highly experienced consultant therapist. She completed her Speech and Language Therapy degree qualification at Edinburgh in 1982. Catherine later held a research grant evaluating effective treatment for children with language and communication difficulties. She has led pioneering therapy developed from her Ph.D. research and extensive experience of working with children with a language and communication difficulty. Both her clinical experience and research has led to the development of CHILD’S TALK. Catherine is recognised as an international expert in the field of autism.

Catherine is a principle investigator in a research trial awarded by the Medical Research Council to carry out a multi-site national study evaluating the effectiveness of direct communication based treatment for children with autism. She reviews papers for publication for international journals.

Catherine has worked as a speech and language therapist for twenty six years and provides comprehensive assessments, medico-legal assessments, reports and intervention for a wide range of specific language and communication difficulties in children aged 2 to 20 years.

She lectures at the University of Manchester and provides an expert second opinion on child communication and language needs and how these can be supported in a school setting.

She continues to work for a Health Care Trust providing specialist support, training and advice to professionals and local authority schools .Catherine acts as professional advisor to Speech and language Therapists, who can seek her advice on ways to assess and provide therapy for children with complex communication difficulties. She also gives lectures, workshops, and courses for parents and professionals nationally and internationally and has published papers on assessment and treatment for children with communication difficulties.

• Certified member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
• Registered Speech and Language Therapist with the Health Professions Council
• Association of Speech and Language Therapy in Independent Practice
• Member of the Paediatric Communication Disorders Research Group (North West)

• B.Sc. Speech Pathology & Therapy (Edinburgh)
• PhD. In Communication (University of Manchester)

• Aldred CR, Pollard C & Adams C (2001) Multidisciplinary assessment and communication intervention for children with autism and pervasive developmental disorders ' The Child's Talk Project. Journal of Psychology and Child Development, 18.
• Aldred C, Green J & Adams C (2004) A new social communication intervention for children with autism: pilot randomised controlled treatment study suggesting effectiveness. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 1420-1430.
• Aldred. CR & Green, J. (2007) Early treatment for autism – new treatments. School of Hospital Medicine ( in press)

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Catherine Adams has worked as a speech and language therapist in the NHS and in higher education for over twenty years. She qualified at the University of Manchester with a first class honours degree in Speech and Language Therapy in 1981 and worked as an NHS speech and language therapist in Nottingham for several years. She then completed a Masters degree (with Distinction) in Human Communication at the Institute of Neurology in London. She was appointed Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Manchester in 1989 and Clinical Senior Lecturer from 1997 onwards, gaining her PhD along the way. You can find more information about her research and education profile at http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/CatherineAdams.

Dr Adams has a principal clinical interest in working with children who have specific language disorders. She has many years of experience of clinical assessment and therapy across the whole age range. She has been training speech and language therapy undergraduate students for many years and lectures in developmental language disorders and evidence-based practice. Catherine has worked successfully with Catherine Aldred for several years on clinical research projects. Together they are currently developing interventions for children with pragmatic language impairments which have been nationally acclaimed.

Her research interests are focused on pragmatic language impairments and related conditions. Catherine is currently leading the first controlled trial in the world of intensive speech and language therapy for children with pragmatic language impairments (the Social Communication Intervention Project - SCIP). She is recognised as one of the UK's leading experts in this field and has published widely in both the UK and international literature on the subject. Dr Adams is frequently invited to give contributions to international conferences and has recently presented research papers in the US, France, Italy and New Zealand. With academic colleagues and local SALT services, she has developed and published a test of language functioning in school aged children (ACE 6-11) which is widely used across the country.

• Certified member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
• Registered Speech and Language Therapist with the Health Professions Council
• Organizer of the Paediatric Communication Disorders Research Group (North West)

• B.Sc. (Honours) Speech Pathology & Therapy (First Class)
• MSc in Human Communication (with Distinction) (MRC Scholarship)
• PhD. (University of Manchester)

• Adams C & Lloyd J 2005. Elicited and spontaneous communicative functions and stability of conversational measures with children who have pragmatic language impairments. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 40, 333-348.
• Adams C, Baxendale J, Lloyd J & Aldred C 2005. Pragmatic language impairment: case studies of social and pragmatic language therapy. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 21, 227-250.
• Adams C 2005. Social communication disorders and intervention for school age children. Seminars in Speech and Language.26, 181-188.
• Adams C, Lloyd J, Aldred C & Baxendale J 2006. Exploring the effects of communication intervention for developmental pragmatic language impairments: a signal-generation study. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 41, 41-65.

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Elaine Clarke is a speech and language therapist with ten years experience working within specialist language units and mainstream schools and as a lecturer and researcher in speech and language therapy at the University of Manchester.

Elaine gained her speech and language therapy qualification from the University of Manchester in 1998 and worked within the NHS as a paediatric speech and language therapist in community clinic and specalist language resources until she returned to the University in 1999 to take up a research post working alongside Dr Catherine Adams. Elaine was was appointed Clinical Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy in 2003 and gained her PhD in 2005.

Elaine’s main clinical and research interest is in the role of auditory processing and auditory memory in developmental language and reading comprehension difficulties. She has many years experince of providing comprehensive assessments and individual therapy for children in this area as well as providing advice for parents and teachers on language needs and how these can be supported in school settings.

Elaine lectures to undergraduate speech and language therapy and psychology students in language processing and developmental language and reading difficulties. Elaine also works alongside Dr Catherine Adams on the Social Communication Intervention Project (SCIP) which is evaluating the effectiveness of an an intervention programme for children who have difficulties with language comprehension, telling stories and participating in conversations. Elaine’s research has attracted interest both nationally and internationally and she has been invited to present at a number of conferences and reviews for a number of journals in her field.

• Certified member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
• Registered Speech and Language Therapist with the Health Professions Council
• Member of the Institute of Health Sciences Child Health Research Network
• Member of the Paediatric Communication Disorders Research Group (North West)

• PhD - The University of Manchester
• BSc (Hons) Speech Pathology and Therapy - The University of Manchester

• Clarke, E. M. & Collins, A (2007). Mapping speech and language therapy provision offered to school-aged children with receptive-expressive specific language impairment: speech and language therapist opinion and practice. Educational and Child Psychology, 24(4): 89-100.
• Clarke, E. M. & Adams C. (2007). Binaural interaction in Specific Language Impairment: an auditory evoked potential study. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 49: 274-279.
• Clarke, E. M., Ahmmed, A., Parker, D., & Adams, C. (2006). Contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions in children with specific language impairment. Ear and Hearing, 27(2):153-160.

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