We examine how children across the world acquire the language(s) to which they are exposed. We have collaborations across several countries and we compare language acquisition across the world’s languages. We also use new technologies to develop tools to foster language acquisition in situations of weaknesses and of language problems in collaboration with prof. Franca Garzotto of the Politecnico of Milan. https://i3lab.polimi.it/
MOOVY
Moovy was created from the collaboration between Politecnico of Milan and some members of the BILGroup. The project aims at creating a new interactive instrument for the rehabilitation and therapy of linguistics and cognitive abilities, dedicated to children and young adults.
Here you can find the website dedicated to the project.
MARS, An inclusive and Universal Tool for Children with Language Disorders and Autism
Communication can be defined as the understanding and exchanging of meaningful messages. The role of communication is central to the lives of human beings as, everyday, we use language to interact with the world around us. Linguistic skills play a fundamental role in this scenario and Language Disorders (LD) and Autism are impairments that limit the processing of linguistic information. Early and accurate identification of LD is thus essential to promote lifelong learning and well-being. The MARS project offers a concrete solution to this problem by creating a speech data gathering tool for language-independent identification of developmental language disorders and autism. Language and Anticipation skills in music (e.g. the anticipation of rhythmic or tonal information) share the same predictive mechanisms. The purpose of this project is to develop a tool able to collect, extract and analyze information from anticipatory rhythmic skills. MARS analyzes the babbling productions of children in typical and atypical populations through a playful activity. In collaboration with the Department of Psychology of Milano-Bicocca University, we developed custom babbling exercises capable of stimulating children’s cognitive-predictive abilities and created a platform that allows the administration of stimuli and the recording of vocal output. We are also building a unique audio dataset that can be used to extract information and cluster subjects’ production. The focus of the project is to analyze the audio’s temporal and spectral features reflecting an individual’s prosodic, articulatory, and linguistic vocal characteristics and recurrent patterns corresponding to specific anticipatory skills. Mars can become an invaluable tool for providing children in need with precious support and your help can make a real difference.
Here you can find the website dedicated to the project.
