LMA Seminar, Professor Nadine Gaab
The Typical and Atypical Reading Brain: How a Neurobiological Framework of Early Language and Reading Development Can Inform Clinical and Educational Practice/Policy
Learning trajectories are shaped by the dynamic interplay between nature and nurture, starting in utero and continuing throughout the lifespan. Learning differences are often not identified until childhood or adolescence, but diverging trajectories of brain development may be present as early as prenatally. Furthermore, children’s experiences and their interactions with their environment have long-lasting influences on brain development and future outcomes. This talk will primarily focus on learning differences in reading acquisition and will present results from our longitudinal behavioral and neuroimaging studies that characterize differences in learning to read as a complex outcome of cumulative risk and protective factors interacting within and across genetic, neurobiological, cognitive, and environmental levels from infancy to adulthood. Results are discussed within an early multifactorial framework of learning differences, emphasizing screening, early identification, and preventive strategies. Finally, the implications of these findings for contemporary challenges in educational and clinical practice and policy are discussed.
Bio
Nadine Gaab is an associate professor of Education at Harvard University. Her work focuses on typical/atypical learning trajectories from infancy to adolescence, with a special emphasis on language/reading development and the role of the environment in shaping these trajectories. Her work is at the intersection of developmental psychology, learning sciences, neuroscience, EdTech, and educational policy within a learning disability framework. Her research laboratory employs longitudinal behavioral and neuroimaging studies to characterize differences in learning as a complex outcome of cumulative risk and protective factors interacting within and across genetic, neurobiological, cognitive, and environmental levels from infancy to adolescence. Her theoretical work focuses on multifactorial frameworks of learning differences with an emphasis on early identification and ‘preventive education’. One important key aspect of her work is the translation of research findings to address contemporary challenges in educational practice and policy. She is the 2019 recipient of the Learning Disabilities Association America Award for her work on learning disabilities. Furthermore, she has received the Norman Geschwind Memorial lecture 2020 and the Alice Garside Award from the International Dyslexia Association for outstanding leadership in advancing the science and advocacy of dyslexia. She also received the Allan Crocker Award for advocacy on behalf of children with reading disabilities and efforts to pass the Massachusetts screening legislation. She currently is an associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, Scientific Studies of Reading, and Developmental Science. Furthermore, she is the co-founder of EarlyBird Education, a gamified platform system for identifying children at-risk for language-based learning disabilities.
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