Clinical Psycholinguistics Laboratory

Vicki Sudhalter, PhD, Head
vicki.sudhalter@opwdd.ny.gov

The research of the Clinical Psycholinguistics Laboratory has focused primarily on the roles of executive function and arousal modulation in the acquisition and production of conversational and narrative language. Executive functions, such as working memory, planning, and inhibitory control, develop during childhood, coincident with the acquisition of many language skills. We have developed a theoretical model that relates impairments of various executive function skills, and the modulation of arousal, to specific speech and language problems, and we are continuing to expand and refine this model. Because the accepted standardized language assessments are not sensitive to the specific errors predicted by our model, we have developed our own assessment protocols and coding methods to identify deficits in the specific language characteristics of interest.

Our research has focused on two populations in which executive function and arousal modulation deficits are known to occur: children with fragile X syndrome and children thought to be at high risk of perinatal brain injury. Our laboratory has collaborated with other researchers around the world whose work has benefited from using our assessment procedures and with IBR’s Neurobehavioral Development Laboratory and Neurophysiological Development Laboratory. With the latter, we are performing follow-up testing at school-age of children who had been participants in their longitudinal study of the neurobehavioral development of high-risk infants. This research is designed to clarify the relationships among perinatal brain injury, infant and preschool indicators of self-regulation and inhibitory control, and subsequent executive function and language development.

Ongoing research projects include the following:

• Executive function and language outcome of perinatally brain-injured children

• The effect of eye contact on the performance of young males with autism and fragile X syndrome

• Naming difficulties in lead-poisoned children

• An initiative to establish best practice guidelines for assessing individuals with fragile X syndrome, and

• Early psychosocial and language development of children with fragile X syndrome.