Marc Maffei

Biography

Dr. Marc Maffei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Rhode Island.

He worked as a speech-language pathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital before earning his PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from the MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2023. He then completed postdoctoral research training in the Infant Communication Lab at Boston University.

Research

Dr. Maffei’s research examines how language and motor skills develop in children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders. By combining acoustic speech analysis, facial motion capture, and behavioral assessments, his work integrates developmental processes to improve the assessment, prognosis, and treatment of communication impairments.

Education

  • Ph.D., Rehabilitation Sciences, MGH Institute of Health Professions
  • M.S., Communication Sciences & Disorders, MGH Institute of Health Professions
  • B.A., Linguistics, New York University

Selected Publications

Maffei, M. F., Chenausky, K. V., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Green, J. R. (2025). An acoustic analysis of speech motor performance in autistic children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 68(6), 2802–2824. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-0056

Shen, L., Xu, A., Butler, L. K., Chenausky, K., Maffei, M. F., Narayanan, S., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2025). Conversational latency in autistic children with heterogeneous spoken language abilities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 68(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-00053

Maffei, M. F., Chenausky, K. V., Haenssler, A., Abbiati, C., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Green, J. R. (2024). Exploring motor speech disorders in low and minimally verbal autistic individuals: An auditory-perceptual analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 33(2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_AJSLP-23-00237

Gutz, S. E., Maffei, M. F., & Green, J. R. (2023). Feedback from automatic speech recognition to elicit clear speech in healthy speakers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 32(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_AJSLP-23-00030

Maffei, M. F., Chenausky, K. V., Gill, S. V., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Green, J. R. (2023). Oromotor skills in autism spectrum disorder: A scoping review. Autism Research, 16(5), 879–917. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2923

Maffei, M. F., Green, J. R., Murton, O., Yunusova, Y., Rowe, H. P., Wehbe, F., Diana, K., Nicholson, K., Berry, J. D., & Connaghan, K. P. (2023). Acoustic measures of dysphonia in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(3), 872–887. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00363

Chenausky, K., Maffei, M. F., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Green, J. R. (2022). Review of methods for conducting speech research with minimally verbal individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 38(4), 241–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2022.2120071

Rowe, H. P., Gutz, S. E., Maffei, M. F., Tomanek, K., & Green, J. R. (2022). Characterizing dysarthria diversity for automatic speech recognition: A tutorial from the clinical perspective. Frontiers in Computer Science, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2022.770210