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    • Professor Beth Armstrong
      https://www.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/691668/professor-beth-armstrong.jpg
    • Professor Beth Armstrong

      Professor Beth Armstrong

Professor Beth Armstrong

Professor

Contact Information Telephone: +61 8 6304 2769, Email: b.armstrong@ecu.edu.au, Campus: Joondalup, Room: JO21.536
Staff Member Details
Telephone: +61 8 6304 2769
Email: b.armstrong@ecu.edu.au
Campus: Joondalup  
Room: JO21.536  

 

Professor Elizabeth Armstrong is the Foundation Chair in Speech Pathology.

Current Teaching

  • SPE3112

Background

Professor Elizabeth Armstrong isFoundation Chair in Speech Pathology. Along with a new Speech Pathology teamrecruited to ECU in 2009, Professor Armstrong established a fully accredited undergraduate Speech Pathology program and a postgraduate research program.Prior to coming to ECU, she worked at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she established the first Speech Pathology Masters program in NSW. ProfessorArmstrong worked in the hospital sector as a clinician in Sydney for many years before taking up an academic career, focusing on acute inpatient care as well as longer-term rehabilitation for people with communication disorders afterstroke.

Professor Armstrong’s research isprimarily in the area of aphasia – language difficulty after stroke. Her workincludes the application of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory to the everydaydiscourse of people with aphasia, early intervention strategies, and issuesrelated to communication disorders in Australian Aboriginal populations.  Her current projects funded by the NH&MRCinvolve a multi-centre randomised control trial of very early intervention forpeople with aphasia after stroke (“Very Early Rehabilitation of Speech -VERSE”), and an exploration into communication disorders in Aboriginalpeoples in Western Australia (“Missing Voices: An investigation intoacquired communication disorders after stroke and traumatic brain injury inIndigenous Australians”).

Professor Armstrong presents regularly at both national and international speech pathology, linguistics, allied health andmedical conferences and has published widely in the area of aphasia. She has actively collaborated in the field of aphasia research at both national and international levels. She currently leads two large multidisciplinary teams involving extensive community collaboration to ensure research translation. She has built a strong collaborative team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers focusing on this area within Australia. She is currently building an international team from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa which is the first to examine commonalities in Indigenous experiences of brain injury and related services internationally. Professor Armstrong also collaborates with research groups at University of Texas, and University of Helsinki regarding Systemic Functional Linguistic applications to aphasic discourse, and with researchers at University of Witwatersrand on cross-cultural communication. She is also leading a national university Speech Pathology collaboration surrounding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curriculum development.

Professor Armstrong was founding Editor of Advances in Speech Language Pathology, now entitled the International Journal of Speech Language Pathology, has been Guest Editor of the Clinical Aphasiology Conference special issues of the international journal Aphasiology from 2007-2010, Seminars in Speech and Language, Journal of Neurolinguistics, and is on numerous international editorial boards.

Professional Associations

  • Speech Pathology Association of Australia

Awards and Recognition

  • Fellow of the Speech Pathology Association of Australia

Research Areas and Interests

  • Aphasia
  • Aphasia rehabilitation
  • Linguistic applications to everyday discourse in aphasia
  • Professional interactions
  • Aboriginal health
  • Aboriginal English

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Macquarie University, 1997.
  • Master of Arts (Honours), Macquarie University, 1988.

Research

Recent Research Grants

  • Enhancing rehabilitation services for Aboriginal Australians after brain injury: Healing Right Way,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Partnership Projects,  2016 - 2022,  $3,281,800.
  • Brain injury yarning circles: Support groups for Aboriginal Australians after brain injury,  Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science,  Neurotrauma Research Program,  2020 - 2021,  $95,000.
  • Medical and Health Research Infrastructure Fund 2018 (Round 22),  Department of Health WA,  Medical and Health Research Infrastructure,  2019 - 2020,  $17,132.
  • Investigating a Communication Enhanced Environment to Increase Communication Activity Early After Stroke. ,  Hollywood Private Hospital Research Foundation,  Grant,  2016 - 2020,  $17,483.
  • Translation of a culturally responsive stroke rehabilitation service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples into a real-world setting in northern Australia: A Type 1 hybrid effectiveness implementation trial.,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Northern Australia Tropical Disease Collaborative Research Program,  2018 - 2020,  $9,487.
  • Yarning together: Developing a culturally secure rehabilitation approach for Aboriginal Australians after brain injury,  Lowitja Institute Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health CRC,  2017 Research Funding,  2018 - 2019,  $197,622.
  • Early process evaluation: Real-world data to inform better implementation of an Aboriginal stroke rehabilitation trial ,  National Stroke Foundation,  Seed Grants,  2018 - 2019,  $29,819.
  • Very Early Rehabilitation in SpEech: An RCT of aphasia therapy after stroke,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Project Grants,  2013 - 2018,  $742,000.
  • Stroke survivors and staff informing Very Early Rehabilitation in Speech (VERSE-Q): a VERSE qualitative sub-study.,  Edith Cowan University,  ECU Collaboration Enhancement Scheme - 2016 Round 2,  2017 - 2018,  $10,000.
  • Very Early Rehabilitation in SpEech: An RCT of aphasia therapy after stroke,  Tavistock Trust for Aphasia,  Grant,  2017 - 2018,  $243,000.
  • Medical and Health Research Infrastructure Fund 2016 (Round 20),  Department of Health WA,  Medical and Health Research Infrastructure,  2017 - 2018,  $29,305.
  • Prediction of language outcome after stroke using clinically available acute brain imaging ,  Rebecca L Cooper Medical Research Foundation Ltd,  Grant,  2016 - 2018,  $25,000.
  • Medical and Health Research Infrastructure Fund (MHRIF) 2015 (Round 19) ,  Department of Health WA,  Medical and Health Research Infrastructure,  2016 - 2017,  $19,560.
  • The Wangi (talking) project: a feasibility study of a culturally sensitive rehabilitation model for Aboriginal people post stroke.,  National Stroke Foundation,  Seed Grants,  2016 - 2017,  $49,779.
  • Missing voices: Communication difficulties after stroke and traumatic brain injury in Indigenous Australians,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Project Grants,  2013 - 2016,  $634,088.
  • 2015 NHMRC Equipment Grant,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Equipment Grant 2015,  2015 - 2016,  $6,798.
  • Standard Equipment Grant 2012,  National Health and Medical Research Council,  Equipment Grant 2012,  2012 - 2014,  $5,744.
  • Learning not to talk: Is communication "learned non-use" following stroke a reality?,  Edith Cowan University,  ECU Early Career Researcher - Grant,  2011 - 2012,  $23,622.
  • Communication difficulties after stroke in Indigenous Australians: Issues and attitudes,  Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies,  AIATSIS - Grant,  2010 - 2011,  $35,541.

Recent Publications (within the last five years)

Book Chapters

  • Brewer, K., Lewis, T., Bond, C., Armstrong, B., Hill, A., Nelson, A., Coffin, J., (2019), Maintaining cultural integrity in Australian Aboriginal and New Zealand Maori qualitative research in communication disorders. Qualitative research in communication disorders - an introduction for students and clinicians, 407-433, Croydon, England, J&R Press Ltd.
  • Ferguson, A., Spencer, E., Armstrong, B., (2017), Systemic functional linguistics and clinical linguistics. The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 491-505, London, UK, Taylor and Francis, DOI: 10.4324/9781315413891.

Journal Articles

  • Booth, S., Armstrong, B., Taylor, C., Hersh, D., (2019), Communication access: is there some common ground between the experiences of people with aphasia and speakers of English as an additional language?. Aphasiology, 33(8), 996-1018, Routledge, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2018.1512078.
  • Armstrong, B., Carmody, A., Robins, A., Lewis, T., (2019), Assessment and outcome measures for Aboriginal Australians with communication disorders. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 21(2), 50-57.
  • Armstrong, B., Coffin, J., McAllister, M., Hersh, D., Katzenellenbogen, J., Thompson, S., Ciccone, N., Flicker, L., Cross, N., Arabi, L., Woods, D., Hayward, C., (2019), ‘I’ve got to row the boat on my own, more or less’: aboriginal australian experiences of traumatic brain injury. Brain Impairment, 20(2), 120-136, DOI: 10.1017/BrImp.2019.19.
  • Ciccone, N., Armstrong, B., Hersh, D., Adams, M., McAllister, M., (2019), The Wangi (talking) project: A feasibility study of a rehabilitation model for aboriginal people with acquired communication disorders after stroke. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 21(3), 305-316, DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2019.1595146.
  • Hersh, D., Armstrong, B., McAllister, M., Ciccone, N., Katzenellenbogen, J., Coffin, J., Thompson, S., Hayward, C., Flicker, L., Woods, D., (2019), General practitioners’ perceptions of their communication with Australian Aboriginal patients with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. Patient Education and Counseling, 102(12), 2310-2317, Ireland, Elsevier Ireland Ltd, DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2019.07.029.
  • Armstrong, B., Coffin, J., Hersh, D., Katznellenbogen, J., Thompson, S., Ciccone, N., Flicker, L., Woods, D., Hayward, C., Dowell, C., McAllister, M., (2019), “You felt like a prisoner in your own self, trapped”: the experiences of Aboriginal people with acquired communication disorders. Disability and Rehabilitation, epub ahead of Print(6 Nov 2019), 15p., DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2019.1686073.
  • Armstrong, B., McAllister, M., Hersh, D., Katzenellenbogen, J., Thompson, S., Coffin, J., Flicker, L., Woods, D., Hayward, C., Ciccone, N., (2019), A screening tool for acquired communication disorders in Aboriginal Australians after brain injury: lessons learned from the pilot phase. Aphasiology, epub ahead of Print(21 October), 26p., DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2019.1678107.
  • Groenewold, R., Armstrong, B., (2019), A multimodal analysis of enactment in everyday interaction in people with aphasia. Aphasiology, 33(12), 1441-1461, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2019.1644814.
  • Godecke, E., Rai, T., Cadilhac, D., Armstrong, B., Middleton, S., Ciccone, N., Whitworth, A., Rose, M., Holland, A., Ellery, F., Hankey, G., Bernhardt, J., (2018), Statistical analysis plan (SAP) for the Very Early Rehabilitation in Speech (VERSE) after stroke trial: aninternational 3-arm clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of early, intensive, prescribed, direct aphasia therapy. International Journal of Stroke, 13(8), 863-880, United Kingdom, Sage Publications Inc, DOI: 10.1177/1747493018790055.
  • Hersh, D., Wood, P., Armstrong, B., (2018), Informal aphasia assessment, interaction and the development of the therapeutic relationship in the early period after stroke. Aphasiology, 32(8), 876-901, Oxon, United Kingdom, Routledge, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2017.1381878.
  • Groenewold, R., Armstrong, B., (2018), The effects of enactment on communicative competence in aphasic casual conversation: a functional linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 53(4), 836-851, United States, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12392.
  • Katzenellenbogen, J., Atkins, E., Thompson, S., Hersh, D., Coffin, J., Flicker, L., Hayward, C., Ciccone, N., Woods, D., Greenland, M., McAllister, M., Armstrong, B., (2018), Missing Voices: Profile, Extent, and 12-Month Outcomes of Nonfatal Traumatic Brain Injury in Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Adults in Western Australia Using Linked Administrative Records. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 33(6), 412-423, United States, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, DOI: 10.1097/HTR.0000000000000371.
  • Berg, K., Askim, T., Balandin, S., Armstrong, B., Rise, M., (2017), Experiences of participation in goal setting for people with stroke-induced aphasia in Norway: A qualitative study. Disability and Rehabilitation, 39(11), 1122-1130, Taylor and Francis Ltd, DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2016.1185167.
  • Penn, C., Armstrong, B., (2017), Intercultural aphasia: new models of understanding forIndigenous populations. Aphasiology, 31(5), 563-594, Abingdon, Oxford, UK, Taylor & Francis, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2016.1213788.
  • Penn, C., Armstrong, B., Brewer, K., Purves, B., McAllister, M., Hersh, D., Godecke, E., Ciccone, N., Lewis, A., (2017), De-colonizing Speech-Language Pathology practice in acquired neurogenic disorders. Perspectives on Neurophysiology and Neurogenic Speech and Language Disorders, 2(3), 91-99, Rockville, USA, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, DOI: 10.1044/persp2.SIG2.91.
  • Armstrong, B., Ciccone, N., Hersh, D., Katzenellenbogen, J., Coffin, J., Thompson, S., Flicker, L., Hayward, C., Woods, D., McAllister, M., (2017), Development of the Aboriginal Communication Assessment After Brain Injury (ACAABI): a screening tool for identifying acquired communication disorders in Aboriginal Australians. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 19(3),  297-308, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2017.1290136.
  • Armstrong, B., McKay, G., Hersh, D., (2017), Assessment and treatment of aphasia in Aboriginal Australians: Linguistic considerations and broader implications for cross-cultural practice. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 19(1), 27-34, Melbourne, Victoria, Speech Pathology Australia.
  • Katzenellenbogen, J., Atkins, E., Thompson, S., Hersh, D., Coffin, J., Flicker, L., Hayward, C., Ciccone, N., Woods, D., McAllister, M., Armstrong, B., (2016), Missing Voices: Profile and extent of acquired communication disorders in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adult stroke survivors in Western Australia using linked administrative records. International Journal of Stroke, 11(1), 103-116, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, DOI: 10.1177/1747493015607521.
  • Hersh, D., Godecke, E., Armstrong, B., Ciccone, N., Bernhardt, J., (2016), “Ward Talk”: nurses' interaction with people with and without aphasia in the very early period poststroke. Aphasiology, 30(5), 609-628, Routledge, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2014.933520.
  • Berg, K., Rise, MB., Balandin, S., Armstrong, B., Askim, T., (2016), Speech pathologists' experience of involving people with stroke-induced aphasia in clinical decision making during rehabilitation. Disability and Rehabilitation, 38(9), 870-878, London, UK, Taylor and Francis, DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2015.1066453.
  • Godecke, E., Armstrong, B., Rai, T., Middleton, S., Ciccone, N., Whitworth, A., Rose, M., Holland, A., Ellery, F., Hankey, G., Cadilhac, D., Bernhardt, J., (2016), A randomized controlled trial of very early rehabilitation in speech after stroke. International Journal of Stroke, 11(5), 586-592, London, UK, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, DOI: 10.1177/1747493016641116.
  • Hersh, D., Armstrong, B., Bourke, N., (2015), A narrative analysis of a speech pathologist’s work with Indigenous Australians with acquired communication disorders. Disability and Rehabilitation, 37(1), 33-40, London, United Kingdom, Informa Healthcare, DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2014.890675.
  • Hersh, D., Armstrong, B., Panak, V., Coombes, J., (2015), Speech-language pathology practices with Indigenous Australians with acquired communication disorders. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17(1), 74-85, Speech Pathology Australia, DOI: 10.3109/17549507.2014.923510.
  • Armstrong, B., Hersh, D., Hayward, C., Fraser, J., (2015), Communication disorders after stroke in Aboriginal Australians. Disability and Rehabilitation, 37(16), 1462-1469, Informa Healthcare, DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2014.972581.
  • Armstrong, B., Hersh, D., Katzenellenbogen, J., Coffin, J., Thompson, S., Ciccone, N., Hayward, C., Flicker, L., Woods, D., McAllister, M., (2015), Study Protocol: Missing Voices - Communication difficulties after stroke and traumatic brain injury in Aboriginal Australians. Brain Impairment, 16(2), 145-156, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, DOI: 10.1017/BrImp.2015.15.

Research Student Supervision

Principal Supervisor

  • Master of Social Science,  Face-to-face: An exploratory study of how people with aphasia and speakers of English as a second language perceive their interactions with government agencies
  • Master of Social Science,  Speech and swallowing rehabilitation in the home: A comparison of two service delivery models for stroke survivors
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