Panying Rong

Panying Rong
  • Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies
  • Honors & Research Coordinator
  • Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences & Disorders

Contact Info

Biography —

Dr. Rong is an assistant professor who joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in 2016. Her research focuses on acquired motor speech disorders, speech motor control, speech acoustics and physiology, and computational modeling of normal and disordered speech. Her work was supported by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. Her research has been published in national and international journals including Journal of Speech-Language-Hearing Science, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Behavioural Neurology, PLoS ONE, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration. She teaches courses on neuroscience and communication disorders. She is also the director of the Speech Science and Disorders Lab.

Research —

Research interests:

  • Motor speech disorders
  • Speech motor control
  • Speech acoustics and physiology
  • Computational modeling of speech

Teaching —

Teaching interests:

  • The Communicating Brain
  • Survey of Communication Disorders

Selected Publications —

Rong, P., Heidrick, L. (2023). Hierarchical Temporal Structuring of Speech: A Multiscale, Multimodal Framework to Inform the Assessment and Management of Neuromotor Speech Disorder. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research - Issue 1 | Volume 67. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00219.
Rong, P., Rasmussen, L. (2023). A Fine-Grained Temporal Analysis of Multimodal Oral Diadochokinetic Performance to Assess Speech Impairment in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology - Issue 1 | Volume 33. http://doi.org/10.1044/2023_ajslp-23-00177.
Rong, P., Hansen, O., Heidrick, L. (2022). Relationship between rate-elicited changes in muscular-kinematic control strategies and acoustic performance in individuals with ALS – A multimodal investigation. Journal of Communication Disorders - Volume 99. https://doi.org/doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106253.
Rong, P., Heidrick, L. Dysarthria in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Oxford Handbook of Communication Disorders in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Oxford University Press.

Selected Presentations —

Early stratification of fast and slow progressors of bulbar ALS based on a diadochokinetic task - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Boston, MA. (11-15-2018).
The effect of spatial tongue-jaw coupling on acoustic vowel contrast in ALS - Annual meeting of the Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Boston, MA. (11-15-2018).
Predicting disease-related changes in jaw contribution to tongue movement in ALS based on a diadochokinetic task - 19th Biennial Conference on Motor Speech. Location: Savannah, GA. (2-21-2018).
Using oropharyngeal articulation to compensate for nasalization: Acoustic and perceptual evidence - 174th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Location: New Orleans, LA. (12-04-2017).
Toward a diagnostic tool for assessing articulatory involvement in ALS - 7th International Conference on Speech Motor Control. Location: Groningen, the Netherlands. (7-05-2017).
Automatic extraction of abnormal speech movement features in ALS from an oral diadochokinetic task - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Los Angeles, CA. (11-01-2017).
Predicting speech intelligibility based on tongue-jaw coordination in persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Los Angeles, CA. (11-09-2017).
Quantitative speech motor markers of bulbar involvement in ALS - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Los Angeles, CA. (11-09-2017).
Predicting speech intelligibility based on tongue-jaw coupling in persons with ALS - 7th International Conference on Speech Motor Control. Location: Groningen, the Netherlands. (7-05-2017).
Differential effects of velopharyngeal dysfunction on speech intelligibility decline during early and late stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Philadelphia. (11-17-2016).
Differential effects of velopharyngeal dysfunction on speech intelligibility during early and late stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - 17th Annual Conference of International Speech Communication Association. Location: San Francisco. (9-08-2016).
Speech intelligibility decline in individuals with fast and slow progression rates of bulbar ALS - Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Location: Denver, CO. (11-12-2015).