Emeritus Associate Professor

Education
·PhD, Boston University
·MS, Emerson College
·MA, Reading, England
Diploma-Linguistics, Edinburgh University, Scotland

Certification
·American Speech-Language Hearing Association, CCC-SLP
Massachusetts State License

Office: 106 Forsyth
Voice: 617-373-2892
Fax: 617-373-8756
E-mail: l.ferrier@neu.edu

Scholarly Interests
· Assistive technology development and testing
· Early intervention
· Accent modification
· Phonetics
· Language acquisition
· Language disorders
· Diagnostics
· Bilingualism and biculturalism affecting communication

Bio

Areas of interest include web-based intelligibility screening of speech of Non-Native Speakers of English Intelligibility improvement with non-native speakers of English. Go to Trinitysoftware.com to see Speech Works CD, Blackmer and Ferrier. Use of voice recognition technology as applied to infants Currently working on the visiBabble project with Professor Harriet Fell in the College of Computer Science.   The Early Vocalization System (EVA) applies the Stevens landmark theory to infant vocalizations (babbles).  The landmarks are grouped to identify syllable-like productions in these vocalizations.  The visiBabble system processes vocalizations in real-time.  It responds to the infant’s syllable-like productions with brightly colored animations and records the landmark analysis.  The system reinforces the production of syllabic utterances that are associated with later language and cognitive development.