Research represents a paramount mission of the Department of Communication Science and Disorders, namely to conduct basic and applied research into:
- the processes underlying human language, speech, voice, swallowing, hearing and balance;
- into the nature of their disorders, including etiology and pathology;
- the evaluation, differential diagnosis and management of these disorders;
- the prevention of communication, swallowing and balance disorders.
The academic goals of CSD’s commitment to research are:
- to equip graduates with the scientific grounding and technical, administrative, clinical, general problem-solving and life-long learning skills needed to engage in the multiple activities and settings that comprise the discipline;
- to imbue in these graduates a desire to become leaders in the field;
- to provide academic and clinical education that exceeds the nationally-established accreditation standards in our disciplines;
- to provide robust evidence-bases for continuing education of post-graduates;
- to make well informed consumers of and contributors to the theories, models, and methods of our own and related academic disciplines both inside and outside of SHRS.
The department thus promotes high quality research, scholarly publication and extramural funding achieved through the encouragement of frequent grant applications, including a broadened array of potential funding sources. To this end, the CSD department maintains a high quality research faculty. Key to its success is a robust commitment of space and other resources to laboratories for CSD investigators, within and beyond the walls of the School’s home base in Forbes Tower.
To learn more about the about research activities in the department, please explore our research labs below as well as faculty CVs through our People page.
CSD Research Forms:
CSD Research Labs:
- Computational Deglutition Lab
- Helou Laboratory for Vocal Systems Anatomy and Physiology Research
- Language and Brain Lab (LABlab)
- Language Rehabilitation and Cognition Lab
- Laryngeal Biology Lab
- Sound Brain Lab
Undergraduate Research Experiences:
Brain and Communication Undergraduate Research Experience (BrainCURE)
Research Round Table:
Research Round Table Presentaions:
Dr. Sarah Wallace: Helping People with Aphasia Compensate for Reading Comprehension Changes
Dr. Will Evans: Pitching your research and the Pitt Innovation Challenge
Dr. Mandy Hampton Wray: Developmental stuttering: Insights from neural processes underlying language and attention
Dr. Jana Iverson: Developing Language in a Developing Body: Interactions and Cascading Effects
Dr. Van Mersbergen: Cortical Responses to Vocal Errors
Virtual Tours:
Explore the expansive laboratories and research initiatives of the Department of Communication Science and Disorders:
Tour the comprehensive lab spaces of the Brain and Communication Science Research Initiative (BASRI) within the Department of Communication Science & Disorders: