Francesca Costa

FrancescaCostaFrancesca Costa is a former PhD student in “Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Neuroscience” under the supervision of Professor Maria Teresa Guasti.

She graduated in Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Padua. Then she matured clinical experience as SLT both in Italy and in the UK (London) feeling a growing interest in the bilingualism phenomenon. In 2016 she came back to Italy and entered the Bicocca Language Group within her PhD program.
Her research focuses on bilingual development in the context of immigration, immersion programs, and atypical development.

Upcoming Events

February 3, 2025
February 10, 2025
  • BIL Seminar "What does atypicality really mean? Language acquisition in autism" - Mikhail Kissine February 10, 2025 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm U6, Sala Lauree, Terzo piano

    Abstract
    "Research on language in autism mostly explores delayed acquisition or atypical use, the reference point being language in non-autistic individuals. Such approaches focus on language disability, but somewhat downplay the acquisition routes that may be specific to autism. More specifically, typical language development is known to be intimately linked to socio-pragmatic, joint communicative experiences. Early-onset and life-long atypicality in the socio-communicative domain are core characteristics of autism, and likely explain why language onset is often significantly delayed in autistic children. However, it is also usually assumed that language trajectories in autism should be correlated with an increase of socio-communicative skills, such as joint attention. In this talk, I will review evidence that some autistic individuals may, in fact, acquire language in spite of persisting strong socio-communicative disabilities. I will also present new results that show that some autistic children are interested in language in and of itself, independently of its communicative function, and display enhanced sensitivity to the acoustic and structural properties of the linguistic input."

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