Cognition, Language and Deafness (CoLD)
Pasquale Rinaldi
The CoLD research unit studies cognitive and linguistic processes in deaf and hearing bimodal bilinguals (people who know and use one spoken and one signed language), combining methods from developmental psychology, neuropsychology and cognitive psychology. Special attention is devoted in developing tools to assess linguistic skills in sign language and in studying the role of factors affecting language acquisition and use in deaf and hearing children.
Our current effort is focused on answering these major research questions:
- Which are the relationships between non-verbal cognitive and linguistic skills in bimodal bilinguals?
- How and to what extent different types of family environment and speech therapy approaches may affect language acquisition and deaf child development?
- Could sign language support communicative and linguistic development in hearing children with intellectual disabilities and/or developmental disorders?
- How and to what extent ICT and different types of school environment could support learning and academic achievement of deaf students?
- How deafness and bimodal bilingualism could affect literacy?