Dr. Esther LAU

Neurocognitive, affective and social consequences of sleep deprivation: from sleep apnea, depression, to sleeplessness

Accumulating evidence converges to highlight the contribution of sleep and sleep disorders to the neuropsychological functioning of individuals with and without mental illnesses. The wide-spread influence of sleep on human neural systems underlying emotions and cognitions in both health and disease processes is being uncovered by sleep researchers across disciplines. This talk aims to broadly address the role of sleep in different domains of functioning for a wide range of human activities in both patient and healthy populations across the life span. Evidence from both experimental and longitudinal studies of our laboratory and others supports the notion that sleep-related cognitive and affective processes are critical and central to the understanding and promotion of neuropsychosocial-spiritual health. Future research may further explore the nature of the neuropsychological processes and the brain pathways involved in sleep and sleep-related functions, their interactions with different biopsychosocial variables, and the potential modifications of sleep and sleep-mediated outcomes by psychological and physical interventions.

Bio

Dr. Esther Lau is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology of The Education University of Hong Kong. Her clinical and research interests include the interaction between sleep and daytime functioning, neuropsychology of medical and psychiatric disorders, and spirituality and mental health. Currently, her primary line of research aims to uncover some of the complex relationships between sleep, emotional and cognitive functioning, and well-being. She is also actively involved in a series of longitudinal investigations on the various biopsychosocial factors contributing to the formation and transformation of beliefs in Chinese. Dr. Lau serves as principal investigator of a number of competitive research grants, including General Research Fund and Health and Medical Research Fund, in the recent five years totalling more than four million Hong Kong dollars. She is a registered clinical psychologist of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, a registered psychologist of British Columbia, Canada (out of province), and a Member of the Register of Clinical Psychologists accredited by the Department of Health, HKSAR Government.

Featured Workshop Speakers

Dr. Angel Wing-shan CHAN

Workshop 1

Using Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) to assess the narrative comprehension and production abilities of Cantonese-speaking children

Bio

Dr. Angel Chan is an Associate Professor at the Speech Therapy Unit of the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at PolyU. Her training includes Speech Therapy (BSc (Hons) from HKU), Linguistics (MPhil from CUHK), and Psycholinguistics (PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany & University of Leipzig, Germany). She is collaborating with researchers from the European bilingual Specific Language Impairment (biSLI) community to study bilingual children in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and her team has adapted some assessment tools from the COST-Action-LITMUS initiative into Cantonese, Mandarin, Kam and Urdu.

Dr. Elaine Yee-lan KWONG

Workshop 2

Assessing the pediatric voices from different perspectives: some latest development in the local contexts

Bio

Dr. Elaine Kwong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is a speech therapist who specializes in managing voice disorders. In the recent years, she had extended her research interests to swallowing. She is particularly interested in the application of ultrasound imaging to the examination and rehabilitation of dysphagia, and standardization of a diet modification framework for dysphagic patients.  

Dr. Dustin Kai-yan LAU

Workshop 3

A digital tool to assess Chinese character writing

Bio

Dr. Dustin Lau is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Before his academic career, he had worked as a speech therapist and clinical educator in a variety of settings, which equipped him with rich frontline experiences working with clients with different communication disorders. Dr. Lau’s research interests lie mainly in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. He is particularly interested in phonological, morphological and orthographic processing and the development of clinical assessment and evidence-based treatment for different communication disorders in Chinese.

Dr. Man-tak LEUNG

Workshop 4

Learn an effective way of Cantonese language sample analysis in 40 minutes

Bio

Dr. Man-tak Leung is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is a visionary educationist and researcher who started his career in speech therapy education in Hong Kong since early 1990s. Dr. Leung’s teaching and research interests include data corpora on Chinese and the theory and practice of language intervention. He has published articles and books on corpus linguistics, language sample analysis, and reading and its relationship with cognitive, psychological and linguistic development. He also served as the founding Programme Leader of PolyU’s Master of Speech therapy programme

Mr. Eddy Chun-ho WONG

Workshop 5

Integrating mobile apps use into evidence-based speech therapy practice

Bio

Mr. Eddy CH Wong is currently a PhD candidate at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is a qualified speech therapist who specializes in pediatric speech sound disorders. With his unique background, he is active in both research and clinical practice. He teaches at universities, speaks at continuing professional development events, and supervises student clinicians in both general speech therapy clinical placements and specialty clinics. Mr. Wong also presents at local and international conferences and publishes in and reviews papers for peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Min Ney WONG

Workshop 6

Introducing a novel reading passage for the assessment of dysarthria in Cantonese speakers

Bio

Dr. Min Ney Wong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She obtained her PhD in Speech Pathology from The University of Queensland, Australia. Her main research areas include neurogenic speech and language disorders (e.g., due to stroke, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury), neurosciences and speech sciences. In recent years, she started to research on childhood apraxia of speech. She also works on the development of speech and language assessment tools for Cantonese speakers with communication disorders, and the application of non-invasive brain stimulation to enhance effects of traditional speech therapy.

List of Plenary Speakers

Mr. Joseph Hin-ching HUNG
Hong Kong Christian Service

Mr. Joshua King-lok LAI
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals

Dr. Ka-ming LAU
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Education Services

Ms. Sharon Sze-ki YEUNG
Caritas Lok Jun School