Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Alexandra Perovic
2023-2024
Home institution
University College London
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Language sciences and linguistics
Neuroscience and cognitive science
Theme(s)
Behavior & Cognition
Health
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Associate Professor of Linguistics at University College London
My research focuses on the acquisition of syntax and pragmatics in monolingual and multilingual children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, Developmental Language Disorder, and, more recently, language difficulties in children and adolescents in contact with the law.
Research Project
Exploring late language development through cross-syndrome comparisons: The search for universal markers of language impairment
Cross-syndrome and cross-linguistic comparisons are crucial in our quest to establish reliable diagnostic indicators of language impairment in different cultural and socio-economic contexts. Such comparisons have important implications for clinical intervention programmes, which in turn strengthen the cross-disciplinary research interaction, critical to innovation. In some regions of Europe, notably in the countries of former Yugoslavia, research on these topics is almost non-existent.
Building on the achievement of the ATLAS group in the Covid cohort of 2021-2022, Aleksandra Perovic aims to map out a picture of late developing phenomena in English and in her native languages, Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian, in populations with developmental disorders such as Williams syndrome and Down syndrome. Her research project questions whether cross-linguistic comparisons (comparing two or more different languages) and cross-syndrome comparisons (comparing two or more developmental disorders) can help us establish reliable diagnostic indicators of language impairment, across languages and across cultural and socioeconomic contexts, during the school years.
Research Interests:
Linguistics; Clinical sciences; Applied and developmental psychology; Applied linguistics and educational linguistics; Child language acquisition; Youth justice; Linguistic structures (incl. phonology, morphology and syntax)