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Staff Profile

Dr Fiona Menger

Lecturer

Background

I am Speech and Language Therapist, graduating from the University of Reading with an MA in Language Pathology in 1998. My clinical specialism is acquired neurological disorders with a special interest in aphasia and acquired brain injury. I worked clinically for the NHS in Winchester, Newcastle, and North Tyneside for 14years before I was awarded a Stroke Association Research Fellowship and moved to Newcastle University to complete my PhD on supporting people with post-stroke aphasia to use the Internet.

Since completing my PhD, I worked as a Teaching Fellow at Newcastle University and a Lecturer in Speech and Hearing Sciences at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. I then moved to the Institute of Population Health Sciences at Newcastle University, where I worked as a post-doctoral researcher on the Life after Head and Neck Cancer Study.

I currently work part-time as a Lecturer (T&R) in Speech and Language Sciences in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences. I am interested in:


  • Assessment and intervention of acquired writing difficulties (dysgraphia) following stroke/brain injury.
  • Speech, language and communication needs of brain tumour survivors.
  • Head and neck cancer survivorship and quality of life.


Please get in touch if you think our interests align and you would like to explore working together.

My usual working days are Mon, Wed, Fri but I may work flexibly outside of these times.

Research

Recent publications relate to findings from my post-doctoral role. The project, "Understanding pathways to post-traumatic growth: informing intervention development in head and neck cancer survivors" was funded by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Joint Research Executive Scientific Committee and was led by Professor Linda Sharp. I also have a developing interest in brain tumour survivorship, particularly around speech, language and communication needs.


My PhD research focused on identifying barriers and facilitators to Internet use for people with aphasia (language and communication difficulties after stroke). I continue to develop this work and hope to build upon collaborative projects with  Dr Matthew Forshaw from Computing Science at Newcastle University on the assessment of written language for people with aphasia.  I have an interest in assessment and interventions for writing and typing difficulties in aphasia.


DAAWN (Digitised Assessment for Aphasia of Written Naming) was produced as part of a collaboration between Speech and Language Sciences and the Newcastle University Research Software Engineering Team. The software is freely available for clinical or research use at https://daawn.ncldata.dev/



Teaching

I find teaching hugely rewarding, and am passionate about inspiring the next generation of speech and language therapists to become evidence based practitioners and to champion our profession. I am involved in clinical supervision of Speech and Language Therapy students on placement within the Tavistock Aphasia Centre and teach on modules related to adult acquired neurological impairment. I also teach modules on research methods and am a personal tutor to undergraduate and masters students of Speech and Language Sciences.


I am admissions tutor for our undergraduate speech and language therapy programmes.

Publications