DLDCN Center: Opening Workshop

Mon Oct 7 11:20:29 UTC 2002

Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience

Opening Workshop

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SLI, Genes, Development & Cognitive Neuroscience
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Friday 18th October 2002 to Sunday 20th October 2002

Department of Human Communication Science
University College London

The genetic identification of two novel loci involved in specific language
impairment in children (SLI Consortium) along with the earlier findings of
the FoxP2 gene implicated in this disorder, has propelled SLI to centre
stage for its potential for facilitating our understanding of the relations
between genes and cognition (Pinker, 2001). This focussed meeting aims to
bring together a multidisciplinary group to disseminate and discuss recent
research findings from genetics to cognitive neuroscience in
SLI/developmental disorders and related areas of language and cognitive
development, raising the controversial issues of the development of
specialised cognitive systems, in our search for understanding cognitive
development. It is clear that in order for us to advance in this area,
theoretical unification between neuroscience, linguistics,
psycholinguistics, and cognitive science is required. 
Towards this end a multidisciplinary list of speakers has been drawn up.
The symposium aims to bring current knowledge and technical advances in
genetic and cognitive neuroscience investigations of language, cognition
and developmental disorders to the participants. Further the workshop aims
to provide an informal forum where in our quest for knowledge about
genomics and cognition, controversial issues can be aired concerning the
inter-related areas of the genetic and cognitive heterogeneity of SLI and
other disorders; domain-specificity, and dissociation versus co-morbidity
of specialised cognitive systems in normal and atypical development.

->->->->->->->-> PROGRAMME <-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-

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Friday 18th October 2002
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2pm		Introduction
			Heather van der Lely, University College London

2.15 - 2.55pm	The genetic basis of a severe speech & language disorder
			Simon Fisher, University of Oxford

2.55 - 3.15pm	Discussion

3.15 - 3.55pm	Genetics of language and cognitive impairment: GLI (general
language impairment) in addition to SLI (specific language impairment)
			Robert Plomin, King's College London

3.55 - 4.15pm	Discussion

4.15 - 4.40pm	Break

4.40 - 5.20pm	The heritability of language and language disorders
			Karin Stromswold, Rutgers University

5.20 - 5.40	Discussion

5.40 - 6.20pm	SLI and dyslexia: same or different? Evidence from
neurobiological and genetic studies
			Dorothy Bishop, University of Oxford

6.20 - 6.40pm	Discussion

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Saturday 19th October 2002
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9.00 - 9.40am	What developmental biology can tell us about innateness
			Gary Marcus, New York University

9.40 - 10.00		Discussion

10.00 - 10.40	Evidence for and implications of a domain-specific
grammatical deficit
			Heather van der Lely, University College London 

10.40 - 11	Discussion

11 - 11.30am	Break

11.30 - 12.10am	Recent studies using normal and backward speech: behavioral
and optical topographical measures in infants and adults
			Jacques Mehler, SISSA, Trieste

12.10 - 12.30am	Discussion

12.30 - 1.30pm	Lunch

1.30 - 2.10pm	The way to syntax: The prosody/lexicon/syntax interface in
German infants
			Jürgen Weissenborn, University of Potsdam
			Barbara Höhle, University of Potsdam

2.10 - 2.30pm	Discussion

2.30 - 3.10pm	Language acquisition is language change
			Stephen Crain, University of Maryland

3.10 - 3.30pm	Discussion

3.30 - 4pm	Break

4 - 4.30pm	Selective versus general delays in language acquisition of
children with SLI: Refining the phenotype
			Mabel Rice, University of Kansas 

4.30 - 5pm	The exact model of specific language impairment and the
explanation of why SLI presents differently in different languages:
Quantitative tests of precise predictions
			Ken Wexler, MIT

5 - 5.30pm		Discussion

5.30 - 5.40pm	10 minute break

5.40 - 6.20pm	Language learning without maturation
			Lila Gleitman, University of Pennsylvania

6.20 - 6.40pm	Discussion

7- 9pm		Reception in Chandler House
			Nicole Tibbels -  short recital of contemporary music & song

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Sunday 20th October 2002
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9 - 9.40am		Grammatical processing in second language learners
			Harald Clahsen, University of Essex

9.40 - 10am	Discussion

10 - 10.40am	Psychogrammar
			Colin Phillips, University of Maryland

10.40 - 11am	Discussion

11 - 11.30am	Break

11.30 - 12.10am	Syntactic processing in the brain
			Angela Friederici, Max-Planck-Institut für neuropsychologische

12.10 - 12.30am	Discussion

12.30 - 12.50pm	Discussants: Robert Plomin, Emmanuel Dupoux, Gary Marcus,
Uli Frauenfelder 

12.50 - 1.25pm	Open discussion

1.25 - 1.30pm	Closing remarks

->->->->->->->-> REGISTRATION <-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-

There are a few places remaining for the workshop, which is also described
on the website 
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/DLDCN. If you would be interested in attending please
fill in the registration form on our website
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/DLDCN/opening.html and send it to:

Claire Lister
Workshop Administrator
c.lister at ucl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7679 4204

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The Workshop is sponsored by:
The Wellcome Trust, Friends of UCL, Department of Human Communication Science, 
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, UCL Faculty of Life Sciences

Professor Heather K. J. van der Lely, Director

Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience
Department of Human Communication Science
University College London
Chandler House
2 Wakefield Street,
London
WC1N 1PF
UK

Tel: (44) 020 7679 4047
Fax:(44) 020 7713 0861
e-mail: h.vanderlely at ucl.ac.uk
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/DLDCN