Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences

Karen Forrest

Professor and Chair
E-mail: kforrest@indiana.edu
Phone: (812) 855-2602

Teaching Responsibilities/Interests

The majority of my teaching responsibilites are dedicated to graduate-level courses. These include courses in Motor Speech Disorders, Instrumental Analysis of Speech and Language, and techniques for Graduate Research. My teaching extends to the training of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows through training grants in developmental processes and in speech analysis.

Research Interests

My research uses varied approaches to determine factors that influence speech disorders, including deficits associated with development and those that accompany neurological disease. The techniques that I employ include acoustic analysis, evaluation of subjects' auditory and tactile perception, as well as physiological parameters that influence speech production. A general issue that is explored throughout my research is how variability and consistency influence speech production in children and adults. Sources of variation emanate from both sensory and motor aspects of speech. Recent studies suggest that certain indices of variability have facilitative effects on speech learning, whereas other types of variability inhibit speech acquisition or change.