Dr Amanda Brignell is a speech pathologist and senior research fellow at Monash University. She holds a clinical research fellowship at Monash Children’s Hospital and is an honorary fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She is also a Senior Lecturer in speech pathology and the National Honours Coordinator for the School of Allied Health at the Australian Catholic University. Amanda has extensive clinical experience (more than thirty years) working across the UK, Canada and Australia in a variety of settings including hospital, community, education and public health. Amanda’s research is informed by her clinical practice and collaborations with consumer research partners.

Amanda has been awarded numerous prestigious awards and fellowships including the Hugh Rogers Boston-Melbourne sister cities fellowship and the Harold Mitchell travelling fellowship. She is an associate editor for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and was the lead author on a Cochrane prognosis exemplar review. She regularly provides professional development training to paediatric speech pathologists (Australia, Brazil, US) and was involved in the update of a World Health Organisation caregiver skills training program for children with children with few/no words in low-resourced countries. Amanda has attracted more than $7.5 Million in competitive research funding. She currently supervises four PhD students.

The primary focus of Amanda’s research is language development in children with complex neurodevelopmental disabilities and differences including autism. She works with collaborators across Australia, US and the UK to better understand communication development in children who are non-speaking or use minimal spoken language. Her research program also aims to build the evidence base to inform therapies and supports for these children and their close others.