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Language, whether spoken or signed, is arguably Homo sapiens’ greatest achievement. Although most children seemingly acquire language without effort, for others the acquisition task is more challenging.
In this lecture, Chloë Marshall will argue that studying these challenges and finding out how learners overcome them informs us about the cognitive processes involved in language acquisition and also informs us about how we can support language acquisition in all learners.
5
7/3/2023
Meet Kearsy Cormier, the Director of the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), as she warmly welcomes you to the world of DCAL’s innovative research. DCAL boasts a multidisciplinary team of experts from fields such as linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience. They are committed to investigating how deaf individuals engage with, comprehend, and learn languages, as well as understanding the cognitive processes unique to deaf people. The research conducted at DCAL has been groundbreaking, shedding light on language processing in the brain, the influence of language variation on sign language structure, and how language is processed by both deaf children and adults. These insights are not only integral for advancing the scientific knowledge in this domain but are also invaluable in informing educational practices and clinical interventions tailored for the deaf community. Explore DCAL's website to learn more about their mission and groundbreaking discoveries.
430
6/8/2023
Are you Deaf and interested in Language or Psychology Research?
Paid Research Placement Opportunities.
We are pleased to announce that the Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre
at University College London has an exciting opportunity for
three, one-week paid placements.
As a paid research intern,
you can learn first-hand what is involved in conducting research
in the areas of linguistics, psycholinguistics
and language development
in the context of deafness and sign language.
Alternatively, as a professional services intern,
you can see what goes on behind the scenes of a research centre
and work in our Professional Services team,
this may include but not limited to science communication,
event management
and community engagement.
You will gain valuable higher education experience in these areas.
Intern criteria:
• Deaf
• Knowledge of British Sign Language (BSL)
• Degree (or studying/planning to study)
in linguistics, psychology
or related areas if ap
59
12/7/2022
We currently have 3 exciting projects running at DCAL that investigate the relationship between language and literacy development. One study looks at language comprehension in deaf children and is one of the largest research projects that involves deaf children here at DCAL. The goals of the project are to adapt a comprehension task from American Sign Language into British Sign Language (BSL) and to explore the effects of BSL vocabulary and BSL syntax toward deaf children’s comprehension of BSL. For this study, we will need 300 deaf children between age 4 and 18 years old so if you work at a school, know of resource base schools with deaf children, or are a parent/caregiver of a deaf child, do get in touch with Patrick Rosenburg and Kate Rowley at p.rosenburg@ucl.ac.uk. For more information, see our Development Research Page: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/research/deafness-cognition-and-language-dcal/research-dcal/development-research
In another study, we are investigating the relationshi
48
12/2/2022
We were saddened by the passing of Frances Elton earlier this year. Frances worked at DCAL for many years. Frances had a long career in research and teaching and her work influenced a great many people. We will be holding a memorial event in honour of Frances to celebrate her life’s work. This will be on Saturday 21st January from 2pm to 5.30pm. There will be various speakers and we will be doing a premier showing of the final version of ‘Lightwave’, a film developed by Rubbena Aurengzeb-Tariq and Prof. Bencie Woll, see: https://www.rubbena.com/lightwave-trellis-2020
26
12/2/2022
BSL GCSE
Another area that Bencie is working is the BSL GCSE. She is currently a member of the working group (together with Robert Adam) developing the BSL GCSE curriculum for England. Work was very delayed because of Covid but it’s now expected that the curriculum will go out for consultation in January with the aim of the course starting in schools in 2025. At the same time, Bencie been working with the Welsh government to develop the BSL Curriculum for Wales. There are a lot of associated resources and training that will be needed to support a BSL GCSE: the need to train deaf teachers of BSL for work in schools, the development of textbooks, videos and guides for teachers and learners.
28
12/2/2022
We currently have three exciting projects that investigate language and literacy development in deaf children at DCAL. Some aspects of the projects overlap. However, the specific aims of each project are different. Below is a brief explanation of each project, including their aims and which deaf children they seek to recruit.
90
6/16/2022
The British Sign Language (BSL) Corpus is a publicly accessible, on-line record of BSL used by Deaf people in the UK. It’s a collection of video clips showing Deaf people using BSL, together with background information about the signers and written descriptions of the signing in ELAN. You can also explore BSL SignBank, a wonderful website with approximately 2500 BSL signs developed from the BSL Corpus. In other words, BSL signs directly from the deaf community!
322
12/8/2021