Lecture | Alexandra (Sasha) Key "Building a functional communication system: Does the baby have a say?"

Alexandra (Sasha) Key | Professor, Marcus Autism Center, Emory University School of Medicine 
"Building a functional communication system: Does the baby have a say?" 

For a long time, language development has been framed mainly in the context of nature-nurture interactions. However, research in non-typical development suggests that another critical contributor should be considered. In this talk, I will present findings from neurophysiological studies in infants and children to demonstrate the importance of self-initiated active engagement with spoken communication for supporting more optimal developmental outcomes. Our data will demonstrate that choosing to engage with speech, an indication of social motivation, is an integral part of the previously established associations between the neural systems and the environmental factors contributing to individual differences in language development. Expanding the general conceptual approach to language to include nature-nurture-person will allow us to better understand the sources of variability in functional communication abilities across the full spectrum of developmental outcomes.

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