Antje Mefferd is a doctoral candidate at UNL. She is an accredited speech language pathologist in Germany where she had worked in acute care settings. She received her Master Degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in May 2004. Under the direction of Dr. Jordan Green, Antje pursues her interest in speech physiology, especially speech motor control and learning/recovery of motor skills. She uses Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) to study speech movements of the lips, jaw and tongue in 3-dimensional space. In her first research project she investigates the articulatory-to-acoustic relationship in response to speaking rate and loudness changes, which may offer important implication to speech intelligibility and treatment of individuals with speech motor impairments. Her dissertation focuses on the speech production of talkers with ALS. Specifically, the aim is to identify potential articulatory constraints that may explain the declines in speaking rate and speech intelligibility with disease progression. Three-dimensional motion analysis is used to compare articulatory speed, displacement and spatial-temporal variability in talkers with ALS to healthy talkers. The main reasons for choosing UNL’s doctoral program are the outstanding faculty renowned for their high quality work, excellent resources in the Speech Producation Lab and the welcoming atmosphere among faculty, doctoral students and staff. |
