Overview

The Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital and University of Melbourne is studying the genetic and neural contributions to speech and language disorders. 

We are looking for child and adult participants with any form of speech, language or literacy disorder (including stuttering) to take part in our project. We are also interested in studying other members of the family without a speech, language or literacy disorder where possible.

A National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence grant has supported this study.

This study has ethics approval through The Royal Children's Hospital Human Research Ethics Committees and is conducted under the National Health and Mental Research Council human research ethics guidelines.

Information for participants

We are inviting children and adults who have a speech or language disorder and their family members to take part in this Australia-wide study. Speech disorders include articulation problems (e.g., lisping), phonological disorders (e.g., substituting sounds such as 'w' for 'r'), stuttering and childhood apraxia of speech, amongst others. Language disorders include comprehension or receptive language difficulties (e.g., difficulty understanding instructions) and expressive language difficulties (e.g., difficulty finding the right word to say or using correct grammar). 

We are also inviting twins to take part in our research. We are interested in studying twins where only one or both children have a speech, language or stuttering disorder. 

If you have seen a specialist because people find it hard to understand you when you talk, or because your speech sounds different/atypical, then you may have a speech disorder.

Get involved

Please contact us to get involved in the study.

Research team

Lead researcher

Professor Angela Morgan 

Prof. Angela Morgan is a speech pathologist, NHMRC Practitioner Fellow and leads the Speech and Language Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She is Professor of Speech Pathology and a Dame Kate Campbell Professorial at the University of Melbourne. Angela is also co-Director of the Speech Genomics clinic (with Professor David Amor below) at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Her expertise is in paediatric speech and language development and disorder.

Project members

Associate Professor Michael Hildebrand

A/Prof. Michael Hildebrand (PhD 2006, University of Melbourne), is a neurogeneticist with a well-established track record in applying genetic and functional approaches to elucidate novel pathways involved in human disease. Michael is an NHMRC Career Development Fellow and Head of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory. He has expertise in gene discovery for epilepsy, speech disorders and hearing loss.

Associate Professor Frederique Liegeois

A/Prof. Frederique Liegeois is a cognitive neuroscientist in the Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychiatry Section at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, one of the world’s leading institutions in paediatric research. Frederique is internationally renowned for her work on the neural bases of inherited and acquired communication disorders.

Professor David Amor

Professor David Amor is a consultant clinical geneticist and clinician scientist with a research focus on human genetics. He completed RACP training in paediatrics and clinical genetics in 2000 before undertaking PhD studies in chromosome biology completed in 2004.

Since 2005, he has worked as a consultant clinical geneticist at the Victorian Clinical Genetics Service (VCGS) and as a Research Group Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Since 2010, Professor Amor has been the Director of Victorian Clinical Genetics Services, which provides clinical and laboratory genetic services across Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. David contributes his clinical genetic phenotyping and provides clinical genetic diagnoses to our families in the CRE for speech and language.

Publications

Morgan, A., Srivastava, S., Duis, J., van Bon, B. (2021). SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder. In: Adam MP, Ardinger HH, Pagon RA, et al., editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993-2021.

Thompson-Lake, D.G.Y., Scerri T.S., Block, S, Turner, S.J.,  Reilly, S., Kefalianos, E., Bonthrone, A.F., Helbig, I. Mandelstam, S., Bahlo, M., Scheffer, I.E., Hildebrand, M.S., Liegeois, F.J., Morgan, A.T. (Accepted, 18 August, 2021). Atypical development of Broca’s area in a large family with inherited stuttering. Brain.

Morgan, A.T., Braden, R., Wong, M., Colin, E., Amor, A., Liegeois, F., Srivastava, S., Vogel, A., Bizaoui, V., Ranguin, K., Fisher, S., van Bon, B. (2021). E-pub ahead of print, 29 April. Speech and language deficits are central to SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder.SETBP1Speech and language deficits are central to SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder. European Journal of Human Genetics, 29(8), 1216-1225.

Jansen, N., Braden, R., Srivastava, S., Otness, E., Lesca, G., Rossi, M., Nizon, M., Bernier, R., Quelin, C., van Haeringen, A., Kleefstra, T., Wong, M.K., Whalen, S., Fisher, S.E., Morgan, A.T.,* van Bon, B.W.* (2021). Clinical delineation of SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder. European Journal of Human Genetics, 29(8), 1198-1205. *Authors contributed equally.

Braden, R.O., Amor, D.J., Fisher, S.E., Mei, C., Myers, C.T., Mefford, H., Gill, D., Srivastava, S., Swanson, L.C., Goel, H., Scheffer, I.E., Morgan, A.T. (2021). Severe speech impairment is a distinguishing feature of FOXP1-related disorder. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 63(12), 1417-1426.