The Department of Speech Therapy at the University of Peloponnese invites those who wish to undertake a doctoral dissertation in the scientific field of Speech Therapy or in related scientific field.

Information

You can contact the department's secretary at (27210-45320, 27210-45328, 27210-45331) for more information regarding the program.

Ph.D. Candidates in the Department

• Chara Poulimenou
  Title of approved Thesis: Speech disfluencies in typically developing children: Evidence from preschool and early school-age Greek-speaking children
  Supervisor: SELIMIS EFSTATHIOS/STATHIS Associate Professor
  Dissertation abstract: The present doctoral research attempts to investigate speech disfluencies in non-stuttering Greek-speaking children aged 3 to 6 years old. Disfluencies have been studied mainly in stuttering and non-stuttering English-speaking children (e.g., Tumanova et al., 2014) and less in acquirers of other languages (see, e.g., Leclercq et al., 2018 for French-speaking children; Natke et al., 2006 for German-speaking children). Corresponding data from children who acquire Greek, a morphologically rich language (e.g., Ralli, 2005), are totally absent. The goal of this research is to investigate the patterns of disfluency as a normal aspect of language development, including its possible communicative/pragmatic functions, in conversations as well as in storytelling. By examining a wide range of features of disfluencies, such as their total frequency, the types of stuttering-like disfluencies, i.e. those found to be more frequent in the speech of individuals who stutter, the types which are non-stuttered, the disfluency clusters, the length (extent and duration) of certain stuttering-like disfluencies and the speech rate, in different age groups, we will be able to record how they evolve in developmental time and provide explanations. Also, the analysis of the pragmatics of disfluencies can contribute useful data regarding young children’s communication skills, an issue that is underresearched even in English (see Hudson Kam & Edwards, 2008• Van Der Wege & Ragatz, 2004). Furthermore, given that the distinction between “innocent” (normal) disfluencies and stuttering is a difficult task on the part of speech and language therapists working with preschoolers, especially when dealing with borderline cases of early/incipient stuttering, our findings will be useful to clinicians as a reference point for this distinction.
• Georgios Makris
  Title of approved Thesis: A psycholinguistic study of irony processing in Greek-speaking children and adolescents with typical development and Autism Spectrum Disorder
  Supervisor: SELIMIS EFSTATHIOS/STATHIS Associate Professor
• Konstantina Sonia Antoniou
  Title of approved Thesis: Investigating the interface between language and Executive Functions in Theory of Mind among bilingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from linguistic and cognitive Interventions
  Supervisor: ANDREOU MARIA Assistant Professor
  Dissertation abstract:The present doctoral research aims at investigating the interface between language, Theory of Mind (ToM), Executive Functions (EFs), and bilingualism in high-functioning autistic children. Specifically, it focuses mainly on whether deficits in ToM in autism originate in syntactic or EF difficulties, also considering the impact of bilingualism. Τo this end, language and cognitive interventions are planned to be performed. The findings of the project are to shed light on the intricate mechanisms underlying linguistic and cognitive behaviors, and will clear the misconception that bilingualism exacerbates cognitive and social deficits within the autistic spectrum.
• Stella Lampri
  Title of approved Thesis: The comprehension and production of non-literal language in children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder
  Supervisor: ANDREOU MARIA Assistant Professor
  Dissertation abstract: Research on non-literal language (NLL) processing has highlighted systematic difficulties of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in this domain. However, both the extent and the exact roots of the well-documented deficits remain unclear to date. The present dissertation will examine for the first time in the Greek population the comprehension and production of different types of NLL in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), controlling at the same time the Theory of Mind (ToM), language abilities, and Executive functions (EFs ) as underlying skills. The findings of this dissertation are expected to contribute to the future design of educational programs and interventions aiming at enhancing the pragmatic skills of children with ASD.
• Ioanna Aresti
  Title of approved Thesis: In the process of change
  Supervisor: ANDREOU MARIA Assistant Professor