1 December 2025
Thank you to everyone who attended RCSLT Conference 2025: 80 Years and Beyond last week (26-27 Nov). It was great to see so many thoughtful discussions and so much shared learning across the two days.
The event would not have been possible without all our presenters, reviewers, speakers and colleagues who contributed to the programme and shared their work with the wider speech and language therapy community. We received over 150 poster and oral submissions to our conference, and our reviewers had the tough job of scoring. Winners for highest scoring abstracts were announced at the conference.
The James Law Child Language Prize for the highest scoring abstracts by Early Career Researchers in the Child Language category was awarded to:
- Vani Gupta: ‘Personal Narrative Assessment in Childhood: A Systematic Review of Methods, Measures, and Implications for Inclusive Practice’
- Dr. Hannah Harvey: ‘”I don’t want to be this uptight, pushy person, continuously fighting for my child”: Parental Perspectives on Developmental Language Disorder’
This award was gifted to us to honour the legacy of Professor James Law. The recipients will receive up to £1500 to fund attendance at national or international conferences to support network building and further dissemination of their portfolio of work.
The highest scoring abstract was awarded to:
- Dr. Sam Burr: Maximising the Impact of Speech and Language Therapy for children with Speech Sound Disorder (MISLToe_SSD): Phase 2 – UK-wide pilot and feasibility testing
The highest scoring abstracts by early career researchers was awarded to:
- Maria Cairney: Sonospeech Cleft Pilot: Results from a pilot randomised control trial of ultrasound visual biofeedback versus standard intervention for children with cleft palate ± cleft lip (CP±L)
- Ellie Jenkins: Evaluating the impact of workforce diversification on the under-five’s neurodevelopmental assessment service: considering waiting times, duration of assessment and value
- Sarah Caughter: Learning from people with lived experience of cluttering: what people who clutter want from therapy
- Dr. Susan Guthrie: Feelgood mealtimes for inpatients, implementing the CHOICES approach
There was also tough competition in the challenge hub where delegates gained points for attending sessions, networking and more. Well done to those who managed to top the leaderboard. First place was Lindsey Collins and second place was Ellie Jenkins both of whom gained over 1000 points. Followed closely by our joint third place winners: Georgia Howes, Jennifer Heath and Marion Alston. We will be in touch to arrange your prizes.
Delegates who attended conference will have access to the platform rcsltconference.co.uk for six months so you can continue to revisit the content, share learning and network. And if you haven’t already, please do complete the feedback survey on the platform so you can help us to shape the next RCSLT Conference.
