We are looking forward to listening to Dr. Marc Joanisse!

Session: Dyslexia, language disability and ADHD – what’s the connection?

Although dyslexia is defined as a specific reading disorder, we also know that affected individuals can often show a host of other difficulties in language processing and attention. In this talk I will discuss recent work in my lab examining overlap in the incidence of dyslexia with developmental language disability (DLD) and ADHD. Of particular interest is how children with these comorbid disorders differ from so-called ‘pure’ cases, and whether this can tell us anything about their underlying causes.

Dr. Joanisse has been a professor at Western University since 2000. His research program studies the cognitive and brain bases of language and reading in children, focusing on the joint contribution of biological factors and experience on typical development and impairments. This includes studying phonology, reading and grammar abilities in children with dyslexia and/or developmental language disability, using everything from traditional behavioural techniques to eyetracking and neuroimaging with MRI and EEG.