photographist

“With the Necker hospital we are working on developing manual laterality in children – right or left-handed – who have a hearing disorder. My role as research engineer is to think about the research questions and to set up the experiments. The tests are presented to the children as games. We try to get answers to our questions and see if there is a link between development of manual laterality – right/left-handedness – and development of language lateralisation. Is there a link between the zones of the brain that control the right hand and the zones that control language? We first observed what happens in hearing children; we are now trying to found out what happens in deaf children. After meeting profoundly deaf babies who had no language input in the final weeks of gestation, we then analyse the data collected and write articles.

The way in which pronouns come together in children is the subject of my thesis in linguistics. I compare French-speaking and English-speaking children, looking in particular at interactions between parents and children. They are filmed at home – roughly one hour per month – between the ages of one and three and a half, and some up to the age of seven. I analyse the recordings and I systematically code everything which is said. I also work on the gesture of pointing, which allows the children to identify themselves or others, by making a link with sign language, in which pointing is very important. For language acquisition, the role of the adult is essential in the way in which the child will construct his/her position in the interaction and become a speaker him/herself. This research allows us to better understand what happens in children who have language difficulties or in autistic children.”

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