Klara Marton, Professor in the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders, Brooklyn College

The focus in this talk will be on the dynamic associations between speakers’ cognitive control and language skills using a person-centered integrative framework. Interactions among various cognitive control components and language related factors, such as language input/intake, frequency of use, cultural and social contexts will be discussed from an individual differences viewpoint. Detailed analyses of these dynamic relationships revealed both challenges and consistent patterns that have significant implications for developing efficient assessment and intervention methods. Examples will be provided to demonstrate how using well-designed cognitive control tasks may improve the classification of children (e.g., distinguishing between emerging bilingualism and developmental language disorder). We will recommend a dynamic and flexible approach that uses cognitive-linguistic diversity as a rich resource to develop an inclusive attitude toward language variations.

This is part one in a two-talk series on "Cognitive control and individual differences in language learning and processing", organised by the TEAM programme.