[Please excuse multiple copies]

I would like to invite you to the annual Macnamara Lecture, which will take place at 3:30pm on Friday November 18 in Room 522 of the McIntyre Medical Bldg. Please put this date into your schedule.

We have the good fortune to have as our speaker Dr. Janet Werker of the University of British Columbia who is world-renowned for her research on the perception of speech by infants.

Her Title is "Are there Critical Periods in Speech Perception Development?"

Abstract: The process of language acquisition begins in perceptual development long before infants produce or even understand, their first words. In this talk, I will review the rapid changes in auditory, visual, and multimodal speech perception that occur in the first months of life as infants establish a foundation for acquiring a single language, in the case of monolingual-learning infants, and two languages in the case of bilingual-learning infants. I will then present evidence that, while under typical circumstances the timing of perceptual attunement seems to be constrained by maturation, there are identifiable variations in experiences that can accelerate, slow down, or modify this developmental trajectory. Finally, I will introduce new questions about whether studies to date on the timing of plasticity have considered all the relevant input systems. The implications of these findings for better understanding language development in both typically developing and atypical populations will be considered.

Morning seminar: At 10:00am on the same day, you are invited to a seminar in room S2/2 of the Stewart Building (in the South wing, on the same level as the centre courtyard), in which Dr. Werker will be interviewed by me about her life as an academic and a researcher on child language perception, and will answer questions from participants.

[Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested.]

Thank you, Al

Albert S. Bregman, FRSC, Emeritus Professor Psychology Department, McGill University (514) 654-3605 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bregman