Dr. Osnat Segal

One of the most interesting questions in the field of language acquisition is how a newborn becomes a speaker of its native language within the short period of the first three years of life. The importance of this question is emphasized by the growing body of evidence suggesting that language-learning disability identified in school-aged children is deep-rooted in the initial processes of language acquisition. Thus, understanding early language-learning processes, from infancy, is highly important in order to: a) gain insight on the typical and atypical courses of language acquisition, b) identify developmental difficulties as early as possible, and c) assess the influence of exposure and use of the native language on the processes of language learning. My goal as a researcher, who is also a communication disorders clinician, is to study the aforementioned processes of early language development in typically developing infants as a basis for understanding these processes in special populations including children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), children with language impairment (LI), children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), and children from low socio-economic status (LSES). 
My research includes three inter-related issues: a) early processes of language acquisition in infants and toddlers, b) the role of prosodic information in language acquisition and its use across the life span, and c) language and speech acquisition in special populations including ASD, LI, CAS and LSES. We use advanced eye tracking technology.