Professor Sue Roulstone, PhD, Med, DipCST, FRCSLT, DH
Emeritus Professor
Sue is Emeritus Professor at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has been a member of the Bristol Speech & Language Therapy Research Unit since 1992 and was a Director here for fourteen years. Sue has worked as a speech and language therapist, a manager, a researcher and an educator and was Chair of the UK Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists from 2004-2006. She has carried out a number of service evaluations and consultations with parents, children and young people. She was a core member of the UK national research programme, the Better Communication Research Programme. This was commissioned by the UK government following the Bercow Review of Services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. From 2010-13, she led a large research programme funded by the National Institute of Health Research (Child Talk) to develop an evidence-based framework of interventions for preschool children which included the views of parents and experiences of children.
Current research
Sue’s research interests focus on preschool children with developmental speech and language disorders and include child and family perspectives, adult-child interaction therapies, professional judgement and evaluation of speech and language therapy.
Selected publications:
- Holme, C., Harding, S., Roulstone, S., Lucas, P.J. & Wren, Y. (2022) Mapping the literature on parent-child language across activity contexts: a scoping review, International Journal of Early Years Education, 30:1, 6-24, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2021.2002135
- McKean C, Watson R, Charlton J, Roulstone S, Holme C, Gilroy V, Law J. 2022 'Making the most of together time': development of a Health Visitor-led intervention to support children's early language and communication development at the 2-2½-year-old review. Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2022 Feb 8;8(1):35. doi: 10.1186/s40814-022-00978-5. PMID: 35135632; PMCID: PMC8822642.
- Wren, Y., Pagnamenta, E., Orchard, F., Peters, T.J., Emond, A., Northstone, K., Miller, L.L. & Roulstone, S. 2023 Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties associated with persistent speech disorder in children: A prospective population study. JCPP Advances. JCPP Advances. 2023;3:e12126.. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12126 (Nominated and shortlisted for Award)
- Hesketh, E., White, P. Simkiss, D., & Roulstone, S. (2023) Outcomes from a community speech and language therapy service treatment waiting list: The natural history of 527 children with identified speech and language needs. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders. 58:1510-1525
- Nicoll, A., Roulstone, S., Williams, B. & Maxwell. M. 2024 Understanding capacity for implementing new interventions: a qualitative study of speech and language therapy services for children with speech sound disorder. Int J Lang & Comm Dis. 59(3), 1002-1017. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12979.
- Gibbard, D., Roulstone, S., Kandala Shadrack, N.II., Morgan, L., Harding, S., Smith, C. et al. (2024) A randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness of parent-based models of language intervention for 2- to 3-year-old children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) in areas of social disadvantage. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.13016.