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Read the interview with Dr Sarah Griffiths on her new fellowship.
Congratulations on your new fellowship! Can you tell us about your project?
Thank you! I am investigating how to adapt “talking-therapy” for treating anxiety and depression for young people who have difficulty learning their native language. Language disorder is a very common, but often undiagnosed condition that can occur in isolation, or as part of another neurodevelopmental condition such as autism or dyslexia. It affects a young person’s ability to learn, comprehend and produce spoken and written language. Young people with language disorder are at increased risk of developing anxiety and depression, and as many as two thirds of young people entering mental health services have language disorder. First line treatments for anxiety and depression rely heavily on spoken language, making them inaccessible for young people with language disorder, yet there is currently no research looking at how to adapt therapy delivery for this vulnerable group.
Can you tell us more about the methods you will use?
In my first project, I am analysing therapy transcripts using computational linguistic methods to understand how therapists align the complexity of their language to the level of complexity of their teenage clients, and whether better alignment is associated with better outcomes. In parallel, I am collaborating with young people with language disorder, speech and language therapists and clinical psychologists to co-design methods of adapting talking-therapy delivery for young people with language disorder. In the final part of my fellowship, I will run an experimental study to test whether these adaptions improve comprehension of therapy content in adolescents with co-occurring language disorder and symptoms of anxiety and depression.
What do you hope to achieve with this project?
My goal is to conduct a research programme that will offer insights into the language barriers that prevent young people with language disorder from engaging with talking-therapies, and provide practical, evidence-based guidance to overcome these barriers. I am building a research team that includes young people with language disorder, speech and language therapists and clinical psychologists to ensure that the research is guided by lived experience and that our findings can be translated directly into practice. This work has the potential to benefit other groups of young people who face barriers accessing talking-therapy, such as young people receiving therapy in their second language.
What does this fellowship mean for you and your career progression?
This fellowship is an exciting opportunity for me to take the next step in my research career by leading my own independent research project. I joined UCL in 2017 to work on the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES), a large cohort study tracking language development and disorder and associated outcomes including mental health. Through working on SCALES, I developed an interest in how we use language to maintain our own mental health and support others mental health. The Prudence Trust Fellowship is enabling me to develop this line of research while gaining new skills in computational linguistic analysis, translational research methods and research leadership.