Language Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Description This workshop centers on the issue of brain development in late childhood and adolescence, and its role for language development, including issues such as developmental comprehension and reading difficulties. Due to the complexity of the language processing system, language development can serve as a tool to explore brain development and brain functioning in general. More research about how the brain executes complex functions and how different areas of the brain communicate with each other may provide new insights in the neural substrates of healthy as well as abnormal brain development. This may be essential for a better understanding of individual as well as societal functioning.

Aim The aim of this workshop is bringing together researchers from the fields of first and second language acquisition and developmental psychologists as well as cognitive neuroscientists. Our goal is to exchange knowledge and research methodologies as well as stimulating cross-fertilization of ideas. We aim at initiating collaborative research endeavors involving researchers from the fields of language acquisition and brain development. This may be the basis to identify a research agenda for the future in the area of neuro-developmentally based language acquisition in later childhood and adolescence.