Hope Sparks Lancaster, Ph.D., is the director of the Etiologies of Language and Literacy Lab. Dr. Lancaster's research interests included developmental language disorder, dyslexia, and language and reading in children with cleft palate. Her research has utilized machine learning to understand behavioral patterns in children with developmental language disorder and genetics of dyslexia. She has utilized meta-analyses to examine language and reading development in children with cleft palate with or without cleft lip.
Dr. Lancaster received her doctoral degree in Hearing and Speech Science from Vanderbilt University in 2015. Her research provided support for rethinking how we characterize the population of developmental language disorder. Specifically, her work suggested that we should consider developmental language disorder as a spectrum disorder. During her postdoctoral fellowships, she explored the links between speech, language, and reading disorders in behavioral, genetics, and meta-analysis studies. At BTNRH, she plans to extend this research by examining the genetic overlap between speech disorders, developmental language disorder, and dyslexia; as well, as continuing to investigate language and reading development in children with cleft palate with or without cleft lip.
Research Interests
- Developmental language disorder
- Dyslexia
- Genetics
- Cleft palate/lip