Pasquale Balzan

Human Communication Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery

Postgraduate Research Student

pbalzan1@sheffield.ac.uk
Room 127, 362 Mushroom Lane

Full contact details

Pasquale Balzan
Human Communication Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery
Room 127
362 Mushroom Lane
Sheffield
S10 2TS
Profile

I graduated from the University of Malta in 2014 with a BSc (Hons) Degree in Communication Therapy. During that same year, I started reading for an MSc in Acquired Communication Disorders at the University of Sheffield on a part-time basis. This course equipped me with a sound underpinning of the theory and clinical issues in the fields of acquired speech and language disorders.

In early 2015, I started working as a speech-language therapist in a rehabilitation hospital in Malta. I am registered with the Maltese Council for the Professions Complementary to Medicine. My clinical interests lie mainly in the treatment of communication disorders secondary to stroke, traumatic brain injury and progressive neurological conditions.

I completed my postgraduate MSc degree in 2017. My Masters dissertation focused on the adaptation and normalisation of the Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment-2 into Maltese. The research also involved the development of the first useable Maltese word and phrase list for the assessment of intelligibility in dysarthria.

In 2018 I was awarded a Doctoral Academy Scholarship from the Faculty of Health of the University of Sheffield. I am currently a PhD student at the Department for Human Communication Sciences.

Research interests
  • Impairment-based treatment approaches in dysarthria and aphasia
  • Novel stimulation approaches in the treatment of acquired motor speech disorders
  • The translation of principles of neuroplasticity and motor learning to speech treatment

Research Project

My doctoral research explores the potential benefits of non-invasive cortical and electrical stimulation as adjunct treatments to traditional therapy in the rehabilitation of dysarthria post-stroke.

Supervisors

Publications

Balzan, P., & Tabone, N. (2017). Auditory temporal order and resolution in younger and older Maltese adults. Malta Journal of Health Sciences, 4 (1), pp. 3-11.
Balzan, P., Vella, A., & Tattersall, C. (2018, Oct). Assessment of intelligibility in dysarthria – development of a Maltese word and phrase list. Poster session presented at the 17th International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association Conference.