Research into deafness, cognition & language

The Deafness, Cognition & Language Research Centre (DCAL) is a team made up of linguists, psycholinguists and neuroscientists. We carry out research that focuses on how deaf people navigate through life, particularly the mechanisms involved in developing and processing language. We explore how deaf people’s language and sensory experiences influence the development of other skills such as cognition and literacy. We do this research from a sociocultural perspective, rather than from the medical perspective, which looks at deafness as something to treat and be fixed. You can look at our webpage to see our overarching goal and mission statement. In this seminar Velia Cardin and Kate Rowley will explain some of DCAL’s work and share some of the centre’s significant findings. 

Velia Cardin is an associate Professor at the DCAL, UCL. Dr. Cardin’s research focuses on the role of sensory experience in shaping brain function throughout the lifespan, focusing on human deafness. Her lab uses neuroimaging and behavioural techniques, across different sensory modalities (visual, somatosensory, auditory). She has received grants from international and national sources, including the BBSRC, Linköping University, the Russian Research Council and the RNID. She is actively involved in engaging with stakeholders and communicating research to the public and to 3rd sector and government organisations. This includes organising events such as the Deaf Brain public event, and contributing to the Prevention and Early Intervention Mission Group of the UK Council on Deafness.  

Kate Rowley is the deputy director of the DCAL, based at UCL. Kate is a deaf researcher and is a native signer of British Sign Language (BSL). She specialises in the language and literacy development of deaf children and aims to promote bi/multilingualism in deaf children and adults. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of an ESRC funded large-scale project that explores deaf children’s comprehension skills in both BSL and English, having collected data from over 200 deaf children between the ages of 4 and 18. You can find out more about Kate’s work on https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7001-kate-rowley/about.  

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