The Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center invites to the CIMCYC Talks "Before Words: Early Behavioural and Neural Markers of Language Acquisition in Neurotypical Development and Autism" led by researcher Itziar Lozano.
Abstract:
Early language acquisition begins long before infants produce their first words. During the first year of life, infants rely on early perceptual, attentional, and brain-based mechanisms to make sense of the spoken language surrounding them. Understanding how these mechanisms emerge is essential for explaining how language develops, and why some young children follow neurodivergent developmental pathways.
Drawing on data from my PhD research and from collaborations across multiple international Babylabs (CBCD Birkbeck, UK; DiVE Lab, Uppsala University, Sweden; and the Medea Autism BabyLab at MEDEA Hospital/Research Center, Italy), this talk will present eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) studies examining how infants and toddlers learn from speech across the first two years of life, and how these early fundamental skills support their later vocabulary development.
The talk is organised in three parts. First, I will address how neurotypical infants learn to integrate what they see (the mouth movements of talking faces) with what they hear (speech sounds), and how early visual attention to talking faces predicts later language development. Second, I will present large-scale cross-lab studies examining whether infants with a family history of autism show different developmental trajectories in this attentional skill, and whether biological sex modulates both this foundational skill and its links to later language and social communication development in autism. These studies include both screen-based and innovative “live” eye-tracking technology. Third, I will turn to toddlerhood and discuss early behavioural and neural markers of vocabulary learning. I will present data suggesting that language experience shapes the emergence of neural responses to word learning, such as the N400 event-related potential, which predicts later vocabulary. I will also show that toddlers continue to rely on the mouth movements of talking faces to learn new words.
Overall, this talk will illustrate how infant-friendly experimental methods and advanced measures of early behaviour and brain activity can reveal the foundations of neurotypical and neurodivergent language learning before children can speak. It will also highlight why this research matters for education, early identification, support for autistic children and their families, and our broader understanding of developmental neurodiversity. I will conclude this talk by presenting my vision for developing a long-term, internationally connected, multi-lab research programme at UGR/CIMCYC focused on early language acquisition, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and neurodiversity.
Short bio:
Itziar Lozano’s research focuses on the earliest behavioural and neural markers and mechanisms of language development in neurotypical infants and infants with a family history of autism. Through longitudinal eye-tracking and EEG studies, she examines how early perceptual and attentional processes support language development across the first two years of life. Her long-term goal is to generate translational evidence that informs early identification and intervention strategies, supporting autistic children and their families.
More information: https://sites.google.com/view/itziarlozano/
- Date and time: Thursday, July 16th - 11:00.
- Place: Sala de Conferencias 2, CIMCYC.