Author: rmt

Nikole Giovannone joins SLaP Lab as Jorgensen Fellow

We extend a warm welcome to Nikole Giovannone, who will join the SLaP Lab as a Ph.D. student this fall. Nikole is currently an Honors scholar at Mount Holyoke College, working in the lab of Dr. Mara Breen. Nikole will join us as a Jorgensen Fellow. Recipients of the Jorgensen Fellowship represent the very best applicants to graduate programs at UConn, and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome her to our group!

Julia Drouin completes General Exam

Congratulations to Julia Drouin, who successfully completed her general examination, in which she defended her paper on “Optimization of auditory training for cochlear implant users.” This is a major milestone on the path to the Ph.D.; next stop, the prospectus. Congrats, Julia!

Dr. Theodore receives NIH NIDCD R21

Dr. Theodore has received a 3-year grant from the NIH NIDCD to examine phonetic category structure in individuals with and without specific language impairment (LI). Specific language impairment (LI) is a common child learning disorder that can persist into adulthood and puts individuals at risk for other disabilities including learning disability, reading disability, and failure to thrive in academic environments. The proposed research will use fMRI neuroimaging and behavioral methods to compare phonetic category structure in individuals with and without LI with respect to (1) how phonetic category structure is represented in the brain and (2) how phonetic category structure is dynamically modified as a consequence of exposure to phonetic variation. These findings will result in improved specification of the etiology of LI, which can be used to develop more targeted rehabilitation protocols. The title of the grant is “Determinants of phonetic category structure in language impairment.”