Ria Bernard

I am currently undertaking my PhD in the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London (UCL). Through my research, I’m hoping to better understand stammering and mental health in children and young people. I have been awarded an ESRC collaborative studentship by the UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Partnership (UBEL-DTP) to undertake this research, which is co-funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and Action for Stammering Children Charity. 

I am a Speech & Language Therapist (SLT) and before starting my PhD, I worked in primary and secondary schools across London with children who had a range of speech, language and communication difficulties. I qualified as a Speech & Language Therapist in 2012 from UCL, where I also completed my MSc in Neuroscience, Language and Communication while practising. The topic of my MSc thesis considered whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied alongside speech fluency techniques improves speech fluency in adults who stammer. 

I have always been passionate about working with young people who stammer, and I hope that my research will make a meaningful difference to the lives of individuals who stammer and their families. 

You can visit my website and read more about my research here.

If you would like to hear more about my current research, you can listen to me in conversation with a member of Action for Stammering Children’s Youth Panel below.