Olga Capirci is currently Research Director at the CNR’s Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Coordinator of LACAM (Language and Communication Across Modalities Laboratory), Coordinator of the Action, Gesture, and Sign language (AG&S) Research Unit. She has been working at ISTC since 1992 and most of her work to date has been dedicated to the study of the co-development of language and perceptuo-motor processes, conceiving language acquisition as semantically driven and embodied. In particular, her research has contributed to enhancing the relevance of a multimodal approach to communication; considering different modalities of expression (e.g. speech, gesture, signs) in children with typical and atypical development (e.g. deaf children, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, and autistic spectrum disorders) at different ages and within different interaction contexts and cognitive tasks (e.g. interaction with caregivers, lexical naming tasks, narration tasks). She has also conducted extensive research on the study of how caregivers’ production of gesture and speech can vary in relation to the child's cognitive status, developmental level, and language ability. Her current efforts are focused on the study of the progression from action to language - spoken and signed - and on the continuity from gesture to sign. She is author of over 60 publications both national and international, member of the International Society for Gesture Studies, member of the Directive board of “Italian Psychologist Association” (AIP), member of the ISTC’ Institute Committee and Ethic Committee, member of the Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed, open access journal Child Development Research.
