The PhD student will be affiliated with the research lab of Experimental Oto-rhino-laryngology (PI Maaike Vandermosten), in close collaboration with Parenting and Special Education (PI Pol Ghesquière) and embedded within the DYSlexia COllaboration (DYSCO) at KU Leuven. In addition, the PhD position is part of a multidisciplinary, interuniversity project together with UCLouvain (PI’s Jolijn Vanderauwera, Baptiste Barbot, Marie Van Reybroeck) and Université de Mons (PI Stéphane Dupont). The uniqueness of this project lies in capturing dynamics across the full age range for oral and written language development (0-7 years), which is only possible thanks to the complementary expertise and combined efforts of the three universities. In terms of complementary expertise on language, KU Leuven provides specific input on phonetic representations and written language, while UCLouvain on oral language components and infant's language. For the methodological component of this project, UMons will create phonetic measures based on open natural language data (daylong recordings) and linguistic measures based on semi-open natural language data (picture description). This allows to capture language development earlier (from infancy) and more in depth (acoustic + linguistic measures) than ever before.
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Project
Language is vital for communication and learning, and serves as a catalyst for later academic success and wellbeing. In current practice, diagnosing children with oral and/or written language difficulties is based on a ‘wait-to-fail’ approach, in which children are diagnosed only after years of language or reading problems. The first years are the most influential for language development, and identification of language problems at this early stage of life is pivotal to prevent later difficulties. This project represents a large-scale longitudinal study of language development from infancy to the first years of primary school. Leveraging the expertise of our consortium in language and reading development, speech recognition and computational modeling, the project aims to identify sensitive windows across the full developmental language pathway, that is, key periods in which a specific language skill (e.g. speech sound representations) has a large impact on the development of other components (e.g. vocabulary acquisition and learning to read). Through a new approach to characterize language development and environment via natural speech, this project will provide individualized predictions for the child and model dynamics between language development and language environment, thereby paving the way for a new era of language research and practice.
As a PhD student within this project, you will specifically focus on:
- Developing clinical language assessment in Dutch across development (0-7 years)
- Applying a novel measure of speech sound representations (measured via day-long recordings) to examine its influence on pre-reading and reading skills
- Using longitudinal modelling to examine the interaction between parental language environment and language performance of the child
- You will work in parallel with the PhD student of UCLouvain, who will focus on the cascading effects of oral language development in French, and with the PhD student of U Mons, providing methodological input on the phonetic and linguistic measures via automated speech analyses.
Profile
- Fluency in Dutch is essential, as the project involves language assessments and interactions in Dutch-speaking children.
- A Master’s degree in speech and language pathology, linguistics, educational science, (cognitive) neuroscience, (neuro)psychology, experimental psychology, or related disciplines.
- A strong interest in dyslexia, developmental cognitive science and interdisciplinary work
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills as well as a creative mind
- Good programming skills (or at least high willingness to learn)
- Strong commitment and the ability to work in an interdisciplinary team
- Ability to work flexibly and independently
Offer
- Fulltime PhD position for an initial year, renewable for up to 4 years
- A competitive salary in line with KU Leuven’s guidelines for PhD candidates
- A vibrant, multidisciplinary research environment, involving different research labs at three universities (KU Leuven, UCLouvain, UMons)
- Opportunities for professional development, including participation in international conferences and workshops
Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Maaike Vandermosten, tel.: +32 16 32 62 94, mail: [email protected].
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