Associate Professor
THE HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
The Department of Language Science and Technology
Funded Research Projects
(a) Research Grants Council (RGC)-funded Projects as Principal Investigator, Co-Principal Investigator, or Chief Supervisor in Recent Five Years:
ORFS2627-6H02
PI
368,000
Advancing Culturally-Responsive Speech Therapy Practice for Children: From Technology Innovation to Person-Centred Care
06-JUL-2026
04-JAN-2027
General Research Fund (GRF) 2025/26
15615525
PI
1,423,201
Advancing the identification of Developmental Language Disorder in Mandarin-Cantonese bilingual children: a reference standard and novel assessment measures
01-JAN-2026
31-DEC-2028
E-RB5V
Co-PI
(PC: SIOK Wai Ting)
4,000,000
Integrating Machine Learning, Behavioral Analysis and Multimodal Neuroimaging Techniques to Investigate the Comorbidity of Specific Learning Disabilities in Hong Kong
01-JUN-2025
31-MAY-2028
The HKPhD Fellowship Scheme 2021/22
Chief Supervisor
997,500
Expressing meaning in personal and fictional narratives in Hindi-speaking children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
01-SEP-2021
31-AUG-2024
General Research Fund (GRF) 2020/21
15609420
PI
662,500
Revisiting Nonword Repetition as a diagnostic tool in Cantonese-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder
1-JAN-
2021
31-DEC-
2023
RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme 2020/2021
RA53
PI
1,189,800
Improving the differentiation of South Asian bilingual ethnic minority children in Hong Kong with and without suspected Developmental Language Disorders: A longitudinal profile of narrative and sentence repetition skills
2-JUL-
2020
30-JUN-
2023
The HKPhD Fellowship Scheme 2019/20
Chief Supervisor
930,000
Assessing Urdu-speaking multilingual children in Hong Kong and Pakistan: Heritage language acquisition and Developmental Language Disorder
01-SEP-
2019
31-AUG-
2022
The HKPhD Fellowship Scheme 2018/19
Chief Supervisor
750,000
Comprehension and Production of Relative Clauses in Cantonese Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder
01-SEP-
2018
31-AUG-
2021
15607217
PI
359,600
Asymmetries in Cantonese Children's Comprehension and Production of Relative Clauses: Structure, Typology and Processing
01-JAN-
2018
30-JUN-
2021
(b) Other Projects as Principal Investigator in Recent Three Years:
1.72.xx.8ANP
Faculty Dean’s Reserve (Teaching & Learning)
199,920
Developing Bilingual Cantonese-English Language Intervention Curriculum for Student Speech Therapists
Co-Principal Investigators: Trina Spencer (University of Kansas); Doug Petersen (Baylor University)
01 SEP 2026
28 FEB 2028
Innovating Multilingual Assessment and Intervention in the Education of Speech Therapists: Building Capacity in the Use of Automatic Speech Recognition Technologies for Serving Cantonese-Speaking Multilingual Children
Co-Principal Investigators: Man-Wai MAK (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University); Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon University, Director of TalkBank)
Autobiographical memory and personal narratives and their association in Mandarin-speaking elementary children and adolescents with and without Autism: a pilot study
Co-Investigators: Marleen Westerveld (Griffith University); Carol Westby (Bilingual Multicultural Services)
4.72.xx.88JL
Departmental Learning & Teaching Grant
159,994
22 APR 2025
21 APR 2027
1-WZ9D
Faculty Reserve for International Research Collaboration
200,000
1 SEP 2024
31 AUG 2026
4-ZZT6
Departmental General Research Fund
399,960
Towards developing AI tools in speech therapy: building training data for Automatic Speech Recognition systems to support the identification of Developmental Language Disorder in Cantonese-speaking children
1 JUN 2024
30 NOV 2025
4-ZZR3
Departmental General Research Fund
249,651
Improving the Identification of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in Bilingual Cantonese-Speaking Children: A Pilot Study on the Diagnostic Potential of Nonword Repetition in Lower Elementary Students
1 AUG 2023
31 JAN 2025
UAK5
Departmental General Research Fund
89,910
Revisiting Nonword Repetition as a Clinical Marker in Cantonese-speaking Children with Developmental Language Disorder: a Pilot Study
2 JUL 2020
1 OCT 2022
YW4G
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Postdoctoral Fellowships Scheme 2018 (chief supervisor)
756,000
Assessing the narrative and lexical abilities of Urdu- Cantonese bilingual preschool children in Hong Kong: Establishing groundwork on their school and community language (Cantonese) abilities for improving the differentiation of South Asian ethnic minority children with and without language impairments
1 AUG 2019
31 JULY 2022
(c) Other On-going Funded Projects as Co-Investigator:
B-QD2T
437,400
The integration of two modalities: gesture and speech prosody in Cantonese focus marking in autistic and typical populations
1 Jan 2026
31 Dec 2027
Multimodal and Multilingual Individualized Training in Improving Empathy and Emotion Recognition by Autistic Children Combining Robotics and AR Technology
K-ZB8B
FBL/064/23
Innovation and Technology Fund for Better Living (FBL)
2,173,250
1 Dec 2024
30 Nov 2027
Understanding Vulnerabilities in Narrative Performance in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Developmental Language Disorder
B-QCCK
769,058
1 Jan 2024
31 Dec 2026
Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder based on an Integration of Robot and Augmented Reality Technology
R-ZH5Z
Sin Wai Kin Foundation Limited (Donation)
3,750,000
1 Jan 2023
31 Dec 2026
1-W08C
500,000
1 Jan 2023
31 Dec 2025
PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award
1-ZE0D
PolyU Project of Strategic Importance
2,000,000
Robot-Assisted Speech and Musical Training in Improving Speech Prosody Production and Processing by Cantonese-Speaking Autistic Children
1 Mar 2022
31 Dec 2024
Emotion Recognition Training based on an Integration of Robot and AR Technology in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
1-WZ02
500,000
1 Jan 2023
31 Dec 2024
H-ZG9X
509,670
Conversational Brains (COBRA)
1 Sep 2020
31 Aug 2024
Developing a Social Robot for Cantonese and Mandarin Speech Prosody Training in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
K-ZB2P
1,128,760
4 Oct 2021
3 Oct 2023
PolyU Project of Strategic Importance
1-ZE1P
2,000,000
The Neurocognition of Typical and Atypical Language Development: Towards Developing Early Biomarkers
1 Sep 2020
31 Aug 2023
English Speech Prosody Usage in Statements and Questions by ASD and TD Children and Robots Development in Improving Acquisition of English Speech Prosody
1-ZVRT
505,000
1 Nov 2020
30 Jun 2023
PolyU Dean's Reserve