Faculty

Sarah Hargus Ferguson

Assistant Professor
Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences & Disorders
Lawrence Campus

Phone: (785) 864-0630 (office)
Phone: (785) 864-0610 (lab)
FAX: (785) 864-3974

safergus@ku.edu

B.A., 1990, University of Maryland
M.A., 1993, University of Maryland
Ph.D., 2002, Indiana University

Research

Dr. Ferguson's research focuses on how various talker-related factors affect speech understanding in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners, particularly in older adults with hearing loss. Her research on clear speech, funded by the NIDCD, is using materials from the Ferguson Clear Speech Database (Ferguson, 2004) to explore what makes clear speech clear for listeners with hearing loss. Another major line of research concerns the perception of foreign-accented speech by older adults, with a particular interest on adults residing in the long-term care setting.

Selected Publications

Ferguson, S.H., Jongman, A.,Sereno, J.A. & Keum, K.A. Intelligibility of foreign-accented speech for older adults with and without hearing loss. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, under review.

Ferguson, S.H., & Kerr, E.E. Subjective ratings of sentences in clear and conversational speech. Journal of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology, under review.

Poore, M. A., & Ferguson, S. H. (2008). Methodological variables in choral reading. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22, 13-24.

Ferguson, S.H., & Kewley-Port, D. (2007). Talker differences in clear and conversational speech: Acoustic characteristics of vowels. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 1241-1255.

Ferguson, S.H., & Lee, J. (2006). Vowel intelligibility in clear and conversational speech for cochlear implant users: A preliminary study. Journal of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology, XXXIX, 1-16.

Ferguson, S.H. (2004). Talker differences in clear and conversational speech: Vowel intelligibility for normal-hearing listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 2365-2373.

Ferguson, S.H., & Kewley-Port, D. (2002). Vowel intelligibility in clear and conversational speech for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 112, 259-271.