| |
 |
|
Eighteenth Annual Darwin College Lecture Series 2003
Changing Science and Society
Lecture 8 : 7 March 2003
Genes and Language
Professor Dorothy Bishop
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University
Dorothy Bishop is a psychologist with a particular interest in language disorders. She
studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University before going on to complete an M.Phil in
Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry in 1975. She returned to Oxford to do a
D.Phil at the Neuropsychology Unit in the Radcliffe Infirmary. There she was diverted from
an initial interest in acquired aphasia (language impairment) in adults to the study of
developmental language disorders, which has been her principal topic of research ever since.
She was for 20 years funded by the Medical Research Council, first in Oxford, and then at the
universities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Manchester, and at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit in
Cambridge. In 1998, she moved to the Department of Experimental Psychology in Oxford as a
Wellcome Principal Research Fellow, where she heads a programme of research into the Nature
and Causes of Children's Language Impairments, funded by the Wellcome Trust. Professor Bishop
has authored over 100 research papers as well as two books: Handedness and Developmental
Disorders (1990), and Uncommon Understanding (1997). Current topics of research include
behaviour genetics, handedness, studies of brain function in language-impaired children, and
the borderlands of autistic disorder.
The lectures are given at 5.30 p.m. in The Lady Mitchell Hall,
Sidgwick Avenue, with an adjacent overflow theatre with live TV
coverage. Each lecture is typically attended by 600 people so you
must arrive early to ensure a place.
|
|
|
|
