Assoc. Prof. Erin Conway

Erin Conway the Deputy Head of School of Allied Health in Brisbane and an Associate Professor of Speech Pathology. Erin's areas of teaching, research and clinical focus include neurogenic communication disorders and their treatment. 

Her current research aims to improve the accessiblity of evidence based speech pathology services for people living with dementia and their care partners, as well as improving the scope and awareness of speech pathology services for communication disorders within aged care settings.

To achieve these aims Erin conducts research on the following topics the impact of communication changes in dementia on the experiences of people with dementia, and the evaluation of treatments to improve communication for people with dementia. Intervention approaches include communication training for carers of people with dementia, and exploring treatment efficacy of word-retrieval rehabilitation in progressive aphasia. Dr Conway is also interested in cognition and language processing in healthy aging and acquired neurological disorders (eg. stroke, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease) and the use of EEG methodology in the investigation of neurolinguistic processing. Erin was awarded her PhD in 2009 from The University of Queensland for her research into the roles of the cerebral hemisphere in word processing following unilateral stroke.

Mok, Z., Steel, G., Russell, C., & Conway, E. (2021). Measuring the interactions of people with dementia and their conversation partners: a preliminary adaption of the Kagan measures of support and participation in conversation. Aging & Mental health, 25(1), 13-21. DOI: 10.1080/13607863.2019.1671314

Meyer, C. J., Koh, S. S., Hill, A. J., Conway, E. R., Ryan, B. J., McKinnon, E. R., & Pachana, N. A. (2020). Hear-Communicate-Remember: Feasibility of delivering an integrated intervention for family caregivers of people with dementia and hearing impairment via telehealth. Dementia, 9(8), 2671-2701. doi: 10.1177/1471301219850703.

Sluis, R. A., Campbell, A., Atay, C., Conway, E., Mok, Z., Angwin, A. J., ... & Mai-Whelan, B. (2019). Conversational trouble and repair in dementia: Revision of an existing coding framework. Journal of Communication Disorders, doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105912.

Conway, E. R., Watson, B., Tatangelo, G., & McCabe, M. (2018). Is it all bleak? A systematic review of factors contributing to relationship change in dementia. International psychogeriatrics, 1-19.

Swan, K., Hopper, M., Wenke, R., Jackson, C., Till, T., & Conway, E. (2018). Speech-Language Pathologist Interventions for Communication in Moderate and Severe Dementia: A Systematic Review. American journal of speech-language pathology, 27(2), 836-852.

Conway, E., & Chenery, H. (2016). Evaluating the MESSAGE Communication Strategies in Dementia training for use with community-based aged care staff working with people with dementia: A controlled pretest-posttest study. Journal of Clinical Nursing. doi: 10.1111/jocn.13134

Erin's research aims to improve the accessibility of evidence based speech pathology services for people living with dementia and their care partners, as well as improving the scope and awareness of speech pathology services for communication disorders within aged care settings. Some specific areas of interest include:

1. Improving functional communication abilities and quality of life of people with dementia and improving communication in dementia care
2. Workforce needs in aged care related to communication skills training when working with people with communication disorders
3. Examining language processing, learning mechanisms and rehabilitation of language impairments in progressive aphasia (dementia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1740-2562

Dementia; Aphasia; Neuroscience; Rehabilitation; Quality of life; Dementia Care

Speech Pathology Australia