Dr. Connaghan joined the Speech and Feeding Disorders Lab at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2018. She became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders in 2021 and founded the Speech and Social Interaction Lab. Her research program, shaped by her experience as a speech-language pathologist, focuses on the acoustic features underlying motor speech impairments and their effect on day-to-day communication. The goal of this work is to support the development of interventions to facilitate the communicative participation and social connectedness of individuals with motor disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Students are key members of the Speech and Social Interaction Lab, and have opportunities to participate in all aspects of the research process and to conduct theses.
Dr. Connaghan’s work has been supported by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, the American Speech-Language Hearing Foundation, Tufts Clinical Science and Translation Institute, and the National Institutes of Health. Her work has been published in national and international peer-reviewed publications, including the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
- BSc, Biopsychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
- MA, Communication Disorders, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
- PhD, Speech Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Dr. Connaghan’s research focuses on understanding the underlying mechanisms of speech impairment experienced by children and adults with dysarthria, and their impacts on daily communication interactions. This work is designed to identify specific aspects of speech impairment that affect communicative participation and social connectedness, and that can be targeted for assessment and treatment.
Dr. Connaghan has published numerous papers - some titles are highlighted below. You can view a complete listing of Dr. Connaghan's publications on Google Scholar or in her CV.
Rate of speech decline in individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Communication and social interaction experiences of youths With congenital motor speech disorders.
Design and results of a smartphone‐based digital phenotyping study to quantify ALS progression.
In addition, Dr. Connaghan regularly presents at conferences and industry events. Please see her CV for a complete list of presentations.
Longitudinal changes to communicative participation in ALS at 33rd International Symposium on ALS/MND.
Cepstral/spectral measures of voice quality in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 33rd International Symposium on ALS/MND.
Approaches to evaluating speech severity of remote speech recordings at 33rd International Symposium on ALS/MND.
What can passive metrics tell us about communicative participation in ALS? at Conference on Motor Speech: Motor Speech Disorders & Speech Motor Control.
Acoustic quantification of respiratory function in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at Conference on Motor Speech: Motor Speech Disorders & Speech Motor Control.