By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

DAVE O’MARA can’t get his friends and colleagues to take his academic qualification seriously.

He has just been awarded a PhD in humour studies and, inevitably, he’s been dubbed a “joke doctor.”

With the help of children at schools in Dundee and Angus, the Dundee University research assistant spent four years studying humour and the important part it plays in children’s verbal and social development.

“I don’t just tell jokes for a living,” he said.

“I work quite hard. It was four years of intense study to get my doctorate.”

Though he is ribbed mercilessly about his qualification, his work is taken very seriously in some quarters.

He and his colleagues in the applied computing division have been awarded £250,000 to help non-speaking people tell jokes and engage in conversation using computer technology.

Dave and his colleagues spent three days thinking up an acronym with comedic overtones for their serious venture, eventually settling on STAND UP—System To Augment Non-speakers’ Discourse Using Puns.

Over the last two decades, Dundee University has blazed a trail in the development of computer technology to help non-speaking people communicate.

The technology is similar to that which helped non-speaking scientist Stephen Hawking to communicate with a computer ‘voice.’

But Dave’s work is all about helping people get to know “the person behind the machine.”

He explained that jokes were “a social lubricant” people used to break down barriers, get to know others and demonstrate their own personality.

They helped children with language and social development.

“Children absolutely adore to play with language and tell jokes. We think that’s because, for once, the child is in control of the adult. If they’re telling an adult a joke, the adult has to wait for the child to say ‘Knock, knock…’ then has to wait for the punch line.

“Children with any impairment (that compromises the development of speech and language) have a gap of opportunity.

“They miss out on this control. What we want to do is help reduce this gap of opportunity.

“We are now looking at designing software that is going to help children use jokes and riddles to show their personality.”