Professor Sheila Wirz
It was 1983 and I had returned from 2 years in New York, my PhD, begun at Reading
University in 1979 unfinished.
I was disconcerted to find that Sheila, my new boss at the National Hospitals
College of Speech Sciences, was married to a conservative MP in a government I
could not support.
But Sheila’s generosity of spirit and intellectual drive meant we could discuss our
differences of opinion and reach, if not a compromise, then at least an
understanding. She never tried to persuade me to love Margaret Thatcher but I did
learn to appreciate her husband’s Andrew’s work and philosophy.
Perhaps the only issue on which we could not find some agreement was the
temperature of our shared office – Sheila, a hardy northerner, required far less
warmth than I did.
National Hospitals College of Speech Sciences (NHCSS)
At NHCSS Sheila led the BSc Speech Sciences final year team, with sherry at a lunch meeting every Tuesday. While we
ploughed through our work agenda, Sheila would be doing something else at the same time and I can hear her saying – I AM
listening - go on, go on.
Her exam marking strategy, in particular, was a joy for her co-workers. Over a three day period, the team would retreat to
the country (once to France); with Sheila’s strict timetable and supported by delicious food, the job would be done, double
blind marking checked and entered on the then new computer at NHCSS.
She and I job shared the role of BSc Course Tutor from 1987-92 – a then somewhat unusual arrangement. To use a juggling
metaphor, Sheila was able to effortlessly keep many plates spinning in the air. During her NHCSS time, amongst many other
activities, she was also heavily involved with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists on Academic Board,
ending up as Chair, as well as working one day a week as a clinician, a requisite of the job then. She was instrumental in
starting what is now the UCL Communication clinic for people with aphasia and in making sure that the need for a new 2 year
pre-registration MSc programme was on the institutional agenda.
Sheila’s research resulted in rigorous, theoretically driven, assessment tools. I want to briefly describe just two of them.
Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme
For 20 or more years the Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme, the result of work with
John Laver, Janet Mackenzie (Beck) & Stephen Hillier, became the perceptual
scheme most often used by British speech and language therapists working with
voice disorders.
Developed with an MRC grant to Laver & Wirz, it was the first perceptual scheme
that systematically examined and described data from the conversational voice,
looking at aspects far wider than just phonation. It required speech and language
therapists to attend a demanding training course, resulting in a cadre of highly
trained voice specialists.
Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme
(1988)
Laver J., Wirz S., MacKenzie J., and
Hiller S. (1981) The perceptual
protocol for the analysis of vocal
profiles: work in progress.
Department of Linguistics, Edinburgh
University 14. 139 – 155
Revised Edinburgh Functional Communication Profile
With Christine Skinner and Liz Dean and, as usual, supported by a grant, this
time from the Scottish Home and health Department, to Skinner and Wirz,
the Edinburgh Functional Communication Profile was devised to assess the
effectiveness of communication of people with aphasia and revised in 1990.
I used the EFCP as part on one research project to profile communication in
people with dementia, extending its use to another clinical population.
You can see, just by glancing at these assessments that they look spare in
detail but are also very much to the point - including all the parameters that
might be needed to describe both normal and abnormal voice, in the case of
the VPA, and functional communication in the case of the EFCP. They derive
from research but are applicable to work in the field.
Revised Edinburgh
Functional
Communication
Profile (1990)
Wirz, S L., Skinner,
C. & Dean E.
Communication Skill
Builders.
Revised
Edinburgh
Functional
Communication
Profile (1990)
Wirz, S L., Skinner,
C. & Dean E.
Communication
Skill Builders.
Sheila and her contribution to her (original)
profession
Sheila was one of the first speech and language therapist to be awarded a PhD.
When she got her PhD, there were still only about 10 speech and language
therapists in the UK with PhDs. She understood early on the need to obtain grants
and work as part of a research team across disciplines and she pushed for this
model to be accepted as part of the job specification of speech and language
therapy academic staff. For this alone, the profession should be grateful for the
model she provided.