Dr Traci Walker
BA, MA, PhD
Human Communication Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery
Senior Lecturer
+44 114 222 2420
Full contact details
Human Communication Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery
362 Mushroom Lane
Sheffield
S10 2TS
- Profile
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I am a linguist and phonetician. I regularly employ the Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology in my research to investigate the function of syntactic and phonetic structures in typical and atypical communication. In lay terms, I examine how people put sentences together and pronounce those sentences to see how these details affect what happens next in an interaction, be it an everyday conversation or a consultation with a medical professional.
My most recent work has focussed on communication in medical interactions, including using digital technologies to increase access to healthcare by speeding up referral to the appropriate care pathway.
I currently hold a four-year NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research grant: Improving Triadic Decision-making Involving People with Dementia. This study focuses on understanding the structure of medical interactions involving people with dementia at various stages of the disease. The outputs from this work are designed to inform and support the current policy drive within the NHS to involve all people, especially those living with dementia, in decisions about their care.
- Research interests
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- Combining phonetic and interactional analyses
- Interactional analysis of medical consultations
- Communication in atypical populations (eg people with aphasia, dementia or autism)
Collaborators
- Professor Markus Reuber (University of Sheffield)
- Dr Gareth Walker (University of Sheffield)
- Professor Christopher Burton (University of Sheffield)
- Dr Alys Griffiths (University of Sheffield)
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Predicting the cause of seizures using features extracted from interactions with a virtual agent. Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy, 114, 84-89.
- Features of answers to questions about recent events by people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, and healthy controls. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 14(3), 408-429. View this article in WRRO
- Understanding the autonomy of adults with impaired capacity through dialogue. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(7), 493-494.
- Differentiating between epileptic and functional/dissociative seizures using semantic content analysis of transcripts of routine clinic consultations. Epilepsy & Behavior, 143. View this article in WRRO
- Fully automated cognitive screening tool based on assessment of speech and language. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 92(1), 12-15. View this article in WRRO
- Developing an intelligent virtual agent to stratify people with cognitive complaints: A comparison of human-patient and intelligent virtual agent-patient interaction. Dementia, 19(4), 1173-1188. View this article in WRRO
- On the potential of phonetic analysis to distinguish between people with epilepsy and non-epileptic seizures. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 30(1), 92-109. View this article in WRRO
- Lexical repetitions and repair initiation in mother-child talk. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(1), 49-73. View this article in WRRO
- What ‘form’ does informal assessment take? A scoping review of the informal assessment literature for aphasia
. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 53(4), 659-674. View this article in WRRO
- 'But what is the reason why you know such things?' Question and response patterns in the LADO interview. Journal of Pragmatics, 129, 154-172. View this article in WRRO
- Action formation, ascription, and the talk of people with aphasia. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 14(2), 292-311.
- Predicting the cause of seizures using features extracted from interactions with a virtual agent. Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy, 114, 84-89.