Theme: Comorbidity

Project Description

Stuttering and co-occurring dyslexia present persistent, lifelong challenges that can severely impact daily living through heightened anxiety and psychological distress. This PhD project will investigate how anxiety evolves across the lifespan in individuals who stutter alongside dyslexic individuals, mapping how speech-related therapy, cognitive challenges, institutional barriers, and coping mechanisms interact from adolescence through higher education, the workplace, and adulthood.

The project will examine key developmental and professional transition points where anxiety peaks, identifying protective factors that foster resilience. It will combine quantitative psychometric tracking of anxiety metrics across secondary school, undergraduate, postgraduate, and adult cohorts with qualitative semi-structured interviews. Integrating these measures will capture the lived experience of mental health evaluation, communicative pressure, and “masking” strategies.

The student will develop a programme of research addressing three core objectives:

• Use mixed-methods designs to chart the trajectory of anxiety and mental health distress across critical developmental and professional milestones.
• Examine how factors such as self-advocacy, diagnostic timing, institutional support quality, and stigma mediate the relationship between stuttering frequency, compounding dyslexia, and overall anxiety levels.
• Translate empirical findings into evidence-based recommendations for healthcare professionals, doctors, and nurses to better support the community who stutters and the dyslexic community.

The project will be based in the School of Psychology and Vision Sciences at the University of Leicester, leveraging cross-institutional collaboration between the University of Birmingham (with Dr. Cathy Manning) and speech-language therapists and clinical psychologists within the NHS.  The student will receive interdisciplinary training in psychometric assessment, qualitative interviewing, mixed methods, stakeholder engagement, clinical translation and statistical analysis in R. They will also be supported in presenting their research at conferences and publishing their findings and publish the findings to shape inclusive clinical and healthcare frameworks. They will also be supported in presenting their research at conferences and publishing the findings.