Early Indicators of Language Ability and Precursors of Literacy, by Marina Kalashnikova- this seminar will be reprogrammed

Summary:

Reading and writing skills are essential for achieving successful communication in today’s society. However, approximately 10% of children who are affected by dyslexia or other problems with reading have significant difficulty developing these skills. Dyslexia has a neurodevelopmental basis and is characterised by specific deficits in reading and spelling, but it has also been demonstrated to impact early auditory processing mechanisms, which unlike reading and spelling, can be detected in infancy. My talk will focus on identifying the earliest indicators of later language ability in children who are and are not at family risk for development dyslexia. Specifically, I will discuss the factors from the child (e.g., early auditory and speech perception skills) and from the child’s environment (e.g., early speech input) that are manifested differently across the two groups in the first years of life, and that could be the earliest precursors of later literacy skills.

Short biography:

Dr. Marina Kalashnikova is a Staff Scientist at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) where she leads the Infant Language and Cognition Research group. She joined the BCBL in 2018 after holding a postdoctoral position at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University, Australia.
Her research investigates language acquisition, specifically the emergence and consolidation of speech perception and word-learning skills over infants’ first two years of life. She specifically focuses on the qualities of infants’ early linguistic environment, and its role in shaping individual developmental trajectories.