Get Involved

Participate

We are looking for children to take part in our fun studies on speech development. Our goal is to understand how children learn to produce speech sound accurately, and why many children have speech difficulties. We want to develop ways to help children learn speech sounds and language more successfully.

In our current studies, we are testing children’s ability to produce speech sounds in words and sentences, and to identify words which are mispronounced. We are seeking both children with speech difficulties (speech sound delay; speech sound disorder; phonological disorder) and children with typical speech and language skills.

Participants are between the ages of 4 years 0 months and 6 years 11 months. For many of our studies, we seek children whose main language is English; for one study, we are seeking bilingual Spanish-English speaking children. Studies involve two or three visits to the lab, each lasting 45-55 minutes. We schedule most lab visits on weekdays between 9am and 5pm, but early morning and weekend times are also available.

We are seeing children throughout the year, in our laboratory in Lyles-Porter Hall at Purdue University. As part of this research, a speech-language pathologist on our team will complete a hearing screening, tests of speech and language skills, speech perception and phonological awareness skills, and other developmental measures. We discuss these results with families and provide them with a written report. No fees are charged for this testing. Parking is free and conveniently located in the Harrison Street Garage, which is attached to our building. Parents/guardians are reimbursed $10 per session, and their child receives a small toy for participation at each visit.

For more information, please email us at childspeech@purdue.edu.

Join Our Team

We are always looking for highly motivated students to join the lab. If you are a graduate student or prospective doctoral student and are interested in joining our team, please contact Dr. Brosseau-Lapré directly to discuss your interests and background (attach CV and describe your interest in the lab). She can be reached at fbrossea@purdue.edu.

Every semester, several undergraduate research positions are available in our lab for students who are enthusiastic about research with children and their families, responsible, attentive to details, and enjoy working with other students and faculty members. Undergraduate research assistants participate in lab management, experimental design, participant recruitment, data collection, and data analysis tasks. Students can work with children participating in our studies and observe a speech-language pathologist administer tests of speech and language skills. For more information, email Dr. Brosseau-Lapré.