The Metrology and Language Sciences Department (web.umons.ac.be/smsl/) of the University of Mons is looking for candidates to take up a post of PhD candidate (M/F) from August 1, 2024.

CANDIDATE PROFILE (M/F) :

- Entry level: 'Bac +5' (master 300 ECTS credits) at least ;

- Initial training allowing access to doctoral studies organised by the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (Psychology, Educational Sciences, Speech Therapy, Linguistics) or by the Faculty of Medicine (in particular: ENT and neurology);

- Solid skills in the field of speech and language sciences, as well as in statistical data processing and research methodology;

- Good command of scientific English (oral and written); sufficient command of French;

- Good teamwork skills, creativity, autonomy, rigour, scientific curiosity;

- Additional assets: programming skills (knowledge of a language such as Python or R), clinical experience with patients with motor speech disorders, possession of a driving licence and a private vehicle.

JOB PROFILE :

The post holder (M/F) will contribute to the Department's research efforts in the area covered by the ARC EvalDY project described below. He/she will be preparing a doctoral thesis related to this project. They may be required to play a minor role in the department's teaching supervision activities.

Full-time research grant for a period of three years, renewable in one-year increments, with a starting date of 1^st of August, 2024 at the earliest.

RECRUITMENT PROCEDURE:

Interested candidates are requested to submit, by June 26, 2024 at the latest, an application including :

- a letter of motivation

- a curriculum vitae (including e-mail address and contact telephone number),

- transcripts of each year of higher education,

- any other relevant documents,

all in a single pdf file sent to the following address: veronique.delvaux@umons.ac.be

After an initial assessment of applications based on the application file, a sub-set of candidates will be selected for a second phase involving a selection interview. Successful candidates will be notified by e-mail and/or telephone. The interviews will take place on July 4, 2024, in Mons or remotely via Teams.

PROJECT: Evaluation of voice and speech disorders in dysarthria: EvalDy

The general aim of the project is to contribute to the characterisation and assessment of voice and speech disorders in dysarthria. The objective assessment (via acoustic and articulatory measurements) of pathological speech production is a rapidly expanding field of research, particularly in the French-speaking world, and there are many challenges to be met.

In the first phase, the project aims to document the speech production of a large number of French-speaking Belgian dysarthric patients, both men and women, with diverse profiles in terms of the type of dysarthria and associated aetiology (Parkinson's disease, Wilson's disease, Huntington's disease, Friedreich's ataxia, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Kennedy's disease, dysarthria after stroke or head trauma) and the degree of severity of the dysarthria (mild, moderate, severe).

The acoustic recordings concern all the participants, who will be asked to produce the 8 modules of the MonPaGe 2.0.s protocol (repetition of pseudowords, intelligibility task, pneumo-phonatory module, reading of text, spontaneous speech, production of verbal diadocokinesis, automatic series and sentences with varied prosodic contours), to which 3 additional modules will be added (specifically targeting nasal phenomena, glides and phonetic flexibility skills). Several sub-groups of participants will be invited to carry out some of the modules in an experimental setting that will enable acoustic measurements to be combined with physiological measurements in order to study certain specific phenomena (acoustics and nasometry for nasality; acoustics, electroglottography and aerodynamics for coordination between the laryngeal and supra-laryngeal systems; acoustics and ultrasound imaging for articulatory precision; acoustics and imaging by nasofibroscopy and stroboscopy for voice quality).

Analysis of this large data set, in particular analysis of the relationships between acoustic and articulatory measurements, will aim to reduce the multiple acoustic measurements to a smaller number of reliable, robust indicators that can be used to characterise all the dimensions of dysarthric speech: laryngeal functioning, pneumo-phonatory behaviour (including intensity control), fluency, articulatory precision and gestural coordination, organisation of the vowel system, and aptitude for phonetic flexibility.

In a second phase, the project aims to use the acoustic indicators thus isolated to develop (i.e. design, operationalise, then assess the psychometric qualities and finally adapt) several assessment tools, each of which will be dedicated to meeting a more precise objective, defined either in relation to a research question or to a need identified in clinical practice.

The first objective concerns the sub-clinical signs of dysarthria in Parkinson's disease, and the possibility of using certain acoustic indices such as vocal biomarkers to assist clinicians in the early diagnosis of the disease. The second objective is to contribute to differential diagnosis, using a tool for acoustic assessment of speech production to distinguish between different subtypes of dysarthria, as well as between dysarthria and apraxia of speech. The third clinical objective concerns the temporal dynamics of the disease, viewed from an intra-individual perspective. The aim is to propose a tool that is suitable for longitudinal monitoring of dysarthric patients, once the diagnosis has been made. The fourth objective relates to a fundamental research question, that of characterising the evolution of dysarthria as a function of the degree of severity in the context of the retrogenesis hypothesis. The fifth objective concerns intelligibility. The aim is to produce a tool for assessing the intelligibility of dysarthric speech, which can be used in future work on the link between intelligibility, communicative efficiency and quality of life in dysarthric patients.

Prof. Véronique Delvaux, PhD

Chercheur qualifié FNRS à l'UMONS

Chargée de cours UMONS & ULB

Service de Métrologie et Sciences du Langage SMSL

Institut de Recherche en Sciences et Technologies du Langage IRSTL

Local –1.7, Place du Parc, 18, 7000 Mons

+3265373140

https://web.umons.ac.be/smsl/veronique_delvaux/

https://trends.levif.be/canal-z/entreprendre/z-science-14-06-23/