Research focus: I investigate language acquisition in infancy and childhood, both in typical and atypical populations. I am particularly interested in how speech prosody interacts with body movements in the expression and comprehension of linguistic meaning. I have an experimental approach, using behavioral tasks and eye-tracking methodologies.
Current projects:
1) "The Role of Prosody and Gestures in the Acquisition of Pragmatics: Typical and Atypical Populations (PROGESPRAG)"
Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2021-2024
We investigate (a) how linguistic prosody and body movements contribute to young children's interpretation of pragmatic meanings, and (b) whether these mechanisms can be used by child populations with various linguistic, communicative, pragmatic, and socio-cognitive skills, to overcome their deficits and ultimately access linguistic meaning. We compare children with typically developing language to children with DLD (linguistic impairment) and to children with ASD (socio-communicative impairment). This project will significantly impact the fields of language acquisition, pragmatics, prosody, gesture studies, and language and communication disorders, and will also help advance our understanding of how neurodevelopmental disorders such as DLD and ASD process multimodal information.
2) Multisensory information in the acquisition of novel sounds
Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2017-2019
We know that rely not only on acoustic cues but also on visual cues to learn novel sounds in a language. In this project we investigate if this integration of multiple senses is also applicable to tactile cues, and we test child and adult Catalan/Spanish learners of English. We investigate the role of the 'real' tactile input (i.e. touching the speaker's lip movements while sounds are being produced) and also the role of 'technology-mediated' tactile input (i.e. touching the speakers' lip movements while sounds are being produced and presented in a tablet app)
Current projects:
1) "The Role of Prosody and Gestures in the Acquisition of Pragmatics: Typical and Atypical Populations (PROGESPRAG)"
Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2021-2024
We investigate (a) how linguistic prosody and body movements contribute to young children's interpretation of pragmatic meanings, and (b) whether these mechanisms can be used by child populations with various linguistic, communicative, pragmatic, and socio-cognitive skills, to overcome their deficits and ultimately access linguistic meaning. We compare children with typically developing language to children with DLD (linguistic impairment) and to children with ASD (socio-communicative impairment). This project will significantly impact the fields of language acquisition, pragmatics, prosody, gesture studies, and language and communication disorders, and will also help advance our understanding of how neurodevelopmental disorders such as DLD and ASD process multimodal information.
2) Multisensory information in the acquisition of novel sounds
Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2017-2019
We know that rely not only on acoustic cues but also on visual cues to learn novel sounds in a language. In this project we investigate if this integration of multiple senses is also applicable to tactile cues, and we test child and adult Catalan/Spanish learners of English. We investigate the role of the 'real' tactile input (i.e. touching the speaker's lip movements while sounds are being produced) and also the role of 'technology-mediated' tactile input (i.e. touching the speakers' lip movements while sounds are being produced and presented in a tablet app)
