Laura-Ann Petitto
Born
New York City, New York, United States
EducationRamapo College, New York University, Harvard University
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1998)
Scientific career
InstitutionsHarvard University, McGill University, Dartmouth College, University of Toronto, Gallaudet University

Laura-Ann Petitto (born c. 1954) is a cognitive neuroscientist and a developmental cognitive neuroscientist known for her research and scientific discoveries involving the language capacity of chimpanzees,[1][2][3][4][5] the biological bases of language in humans, especially early language acquisition (be it language on the hands in signed languages or on the tongue in spoken languages),[6][7][8] early reading,[9][10] and bilingualism, bilingual reading, and the bilingual brain.[11][12][13][14][15] Significant scientific discoveries include the existence of linguistic babbling on the hands of deaf babies (“manual babbling”)[16][17][18] and the equivalent neural processing of signed and spoken languages in the human brain.[19][20] She is recognized for her contributions to the creation of the new scientific discipline, called educational neuroscience.[21][22] Petitto chaired a new undergraduate department at Dartmouth College, called "Educational Neuroscience and Human Development" (2002-2007), and was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation and Dartmouth's Science of Learning Center, called the "Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience" (2004-2007).[23] At Gallaudet University (2011–present), Petitto led a team in the creation of the first PhD in Educational Neuroscience program in the United States.[24] Petitto is the Co-Principal Investigator as well as Science Director of the National Science Foundation and Gallaudet University’s Science of Learning Center, called the "Visual Language and Visual Learning Center (VL2)".[25] Petitto is also founder and Scientific Director of the Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging (“BL2”) at Gallaudet University.[26][27][28]

Biography

Education

Petitto received her Bachelor of Science degree in 1975 from Ramapo College of New Jersey while taking undergraduate classes and conducting cross-species language research with the chimpanzee "Nim Chimpsky" at Columbia University (New York City, New York).[29][1] Petitto then conducted psycholinguistic research on American Sign Language (ASL) in the laboratory of Ursula Bellugi at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, California),[30] along with Linguist, Edward Klima, of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where Petitto began graduate study in the Department of Linguistics (1976–1977). Petitto continued graduate study at New York University (Master's degree, 1978, specializing in Rehabilitative Counseling Psychology and Deafness, 1977–1978). Petitto then researched the phonological structure of ASL in "The Linguistics Research Laboratory" of William Stokoe at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. (1978–1979). In 1979, Petitto began graduate study at Harvard University, Department of Human Development and Psychology, in its "Language & Cognition" track. While Roger Brown (primary Graduate Advisor)[8] and Courtney Cazden (co-Advisor) were Petitto's mentors in "Cognition," Noam Chomsky at MIT was Petitto's mentor in "Language." Petitto first met the renowned Linguist when working with Nim Chimpsky on Project Nim in the mid 1970s and this intellectual mentorship endured throughout her Harvard graduate studies and for decades to follow.[6] Petitto was graduated from Harvard with a master's degree in 1981, and a Doctorate/Ed.D. in March, 1984. Leaving Harvard in fall 1983 to take up her first faculty appointment in McGill University's Department of Psychology (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Petitto also won a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (awarded to 10 young scientists in the USA). Commuting between McGill and Salk in her first few faculty years, Petitto studied with Ursula Bellugi and Francis Crick (Salk), and Elizabeth Bates (UCSD), intellectual mentorships that would span decades thereafter. Petitto's McGill psychology department role expanded when she also became a research scientist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, and a collaborating scientist on The McDonnell-Pew Centre Grant in Cognitive Neuroscience with Brenda Milner, Michael Petrides (PIs), as well as with Robert Zatorre (1990-2001).[31][32]

Scientific contributions

Petitto's research and discoveries span several scientific disciplines. Her early work with Nim Chimpsky and her later work with humans, encompasses anthropology, comparative ethology, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, theoretical linguistics, philosophy, psychology, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, child development, evolutionary psychology, American Sign Language, deaf studies, and bilingualism. Her overall discoveries involve:

Advancement of New Discipline: Petitto had an early role in the creation of a new scientific discipline with her colleague and husband Kevin Niall Dunbar, which they termed Educational Neuroscience.[22] Educational Neuroscience is a sister discipline of Cognitive Neuroscience, in which basic neuroscience and behavioral science discoveries about the developing brain and the growing child are joined with their translational implications, towards the ultimate goal of solving core problems in society and the education of young children.[21] [22]

Advancement of Technology: Petitto's science shows a history of pushing technology in new directions so as to answer previously insoluble questions in science, involving, for example, novel use of Positron Emission Technology (PET) with anatomical Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) so as to identify the brain tissue and systems underlying human signed languages as compared with the tissue/systems underlying spoken languages;[19] OPTOTRAK (high-speed kinetics and dynamic motion capture system) to build a device analogous to a speech spectrogram but for signed languages so as to study the fundamental frequency (fo or FF) of deaf and hearing infants’ linguistic manual babbling;[16][17] and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) neuroimaging to conduct original studies comparing bilingual and monolingual adult brains.[12] To surmount the discipline's widely known challenges of studying developing newborn brains over time with fMRI, Petitto used functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging to conduct among the first studies of human infant brains as they develop over time while acquiring one versus two languages (monolingual and bilingual infant brains compared).[35][36] Petitto uses Eye-Tracking;[37] and, with a team of collaborating scientists, Petitto led a research team to advance and integrate novel technology involving a Robot, an Avatar, Thermal Infrared Imaging plus fNIRS, with Eye-Tracking, and Kinect to build an artificial agent + human infant language learning tool (called RAVE) capable of socially-contingent and socially interactive communications with an infant when it is most engaged and "ready to learn."[38][39][40][41]

Taken together, Petitto's research discoveries and scientific writings have offered testable hypotheses and theory regarding the neural basis for the brain's specialization for human language, the types of language features a child must minimally be exposed to (and when) in early life (sensitive or critical periods), what happens if early critical periods are missed, and how best to facilitate optimal language learning in all children acquiring all human languages be they signed or spoken.[42][6][7]

Early research

Beginning in 1973 in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, Petitto attempted to teach signed language to a baby chimpanzee ("Project Nim Chimpsky," named after Noam Chomsky, with Professors Herbert Terrace and Thomas Bever). Petitto had a leading role on Project Nim Chimpsky as the "Primary Sign Language Teacher", "Project Coordinator", and primary "Surrogate Mother".[1] Despite the dangers of living with a chimpanzee, Petitto lived with and cared for Nim as a child in an attempt to create a natural language, cognitive, and highly caring and rich social environment, mirroring that of a human child. Most of the chimp's scientific training and accomplishments were achieved during Petitto's 4-year tenure on the Project as Nim's teacher and caretaker.[29] She and her colleagues have authored several of the world's seminal scientific papers on the question of language in chimpanzees, including now classic articles on the similarities and differences between the ape and human mind.[2][3][4][5]

After her undergraduate work with Nim Chimpsky, Petitto went on to make discoveries about the linguistic structure, acquisition, and representation in the brain of the world's natural signed languages, especially American Sign Language (ASL). Using signed languages as a new "microscope" to discover the central/universal properties of human language in the brain (those that are distinct from the modality of language transmission and reception), Petitto focused on the following lines of research:

Petitto's research has contributed to the body of knowledge establishing that the signed languages of deaf people around the world are real languages with the full expressive capacity as spoken languages.[52] Petitto and colleagues were also the first to study experimentally the validity of a widely used educational practice with Deaf children in the 1970s, whereupon teachers (typically hearing) used parts of ASL signs and linguistic structure simultaneously while speaking English in the classroom, called "Simultaneous Communication" (or "Simcom"). The Petitto team's experimental study of Simcom with Deaf children demonstrated empirically that it was highly impoverished at representing either ASL or English, and, in turn, it was a non-optimal teaching method. Instead their work supported the use of a natural signed language with Deaf children from early life such as ASL, which would best provide a solid linguistic foundation upon which to learn other languages (such as English). They advanced the idea that Deaf Education would be best to move to a full Bilingual and Bicultural educational model, and that this course was most commensurate with the biological requirements in human brain development to achieve the most healthy language learning. This research had lasting implications for subsequent Deaf Education policy and practice.[53]

Current research

Petitto's more recent studies involve the use of a combination of four disciplines:

Since 2000, Petitto's cognitive neuroscience/educational neuroscience research program has continued. Petitto and her laboratory team are known for discovering that young bilingual children are not harmed, delayed, or confused by early dual language exposure. These children not only achieve their language milestones (in each language) on the same timetable as monolinguals,[11][13][56] they demonstrate the same semantic and conceptual development as monolinguals, with societal implications that early-life (rather than later) bilingual and multilingual language exposure is optimal for language and reading success.[45][57] Petitto and her team have also identified the mechanisms that make possible the human infant's early capacity to phonetically discriminate (segment and categorize) the constantly varying linguistic stream around them, and they have articulated the developmental conditions required for this capacity to grow most vibrantly in all children.[33][58][34][42] Petitto and team have identified fundamental processes that underlie human reading and spelling in all language users[59] and found evidence for select reading advantages in young bilingual children as compared to matched monolingual peers, termed the "bilingual reading advantage".[14] They have further discovered surprising ways in which bilingual schooling can ameliorate the deleterious effects of low SES.[14] They are also among the first group of researchers to compare directly adult bilingual and monolingual brains[60][12][15] and what happens when the adult brain learns two artificial languages as a second language.[61] She has conducted studies of how extensive training (expertise) in one domain of knowledge impacts or "transfers" to other domains of knowledge (and the extent of this transfer). Since 2014, Petitto (PI) and her team conduct behavioral, brain, and Artificial Intelligence (Robot, Avatar, Thermal Infrared Imaging) studies specifically to advance understanding of the human learning capacity across the lifespan, and especially the optimal conditions for language learning in young deaf and hearing children acquiring signed and spoken languages.

Research awards

Petitto is the recipient of over twenty international prizes and awards including,

References

  1. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A., "Nim Chimpsky: A Life That was Rich Beyond Words". The Washington Post, Saturday March 18, 2000.
  2. ^ a b Seidenberg, M. S., & Petitto, L. A. (1987). Communication, symbolic communication, and language in child and chimpanzee: Comment on Savage-Rumbaugh, McDonald, Sevcik, Hopkins, and Rupert (1986). Journal of Experimental Psychology, General, 116(3), 279-287.
  3. ^ a b Terrace, H.S., Petitto, L.A., Sanders, R.J., & Bever, T.G. (1979). Can an ape create a sentence? Science, 206, 891-902.
  4. ^ a b Petitto, L.A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (1979). On the evidence for linguistic abilities in signing apes. Brain and Language, 8, 72-88.
  5. ^ a b Seidenberg, M.S., & Petitto, L.A. (1979). Signing behavior in apes: A critical review. Cognition, 7, 177-215.
  6. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A. (2005). How the brain begets language: On the neural tissue underlying human language acquisition. Chapter in J. McGilvray (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky. England: Cambridge University Press, pp 84-101.
  7. ^ a b Petitto, L.A. (1997). In the beginning: On the genetic and environmental factors that make early language acquisition possible. In M. Gopnik (Ed.), The inheritance and innateness of grammars (pp. 45-69). England: Oxford University Press.
  8. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A. (1988). "Language" in the pre-linguistic child. In F. Kessel (Ed.), Development of language and language researchers: Essays in honor of Roger Brown (pp. 187-221). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  9. ^ Jasinska, K.K., Berens, M., Kovelman, I., & Petitto, L.A. (2016). Bilingualism yields language-specific plasticity in left hemisphere’s circuitry for learning to read in young children. Neuropsychologia. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.11.018
  10. ^ Jasińska, K. & Petitto, L.A. (2014). Development of Neural Systems for Reading in the Monolingual and Bilingual Brain: New Insights from functional Near Infrared
  11. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A., Katerelos, M., Levy, B., Gauna, K., Tétrault, K., & Ferraro, V. (2001). Bilingual sign and oral language acquisition from birth: Implications for mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 28(2), 453-496.
  12. ^ a b c Kovelman, I., Baker, S.A., & Petitto, L. A. (2008). Bilingual and Monolingual brains compared: An fMRI investigation of syntactic processing and a possible "neural signature" of bilingualism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(1), 153-169.
  13. ^ a b Petitto, L.A., & Kovelman, I. (2003). The Bilingual Paradox: How signing-speaking bilingual children help us to resolve bilingual issues and teach us about the brain's mechanisms underlying all language acquisition. Learning Languages, 8(3), 5-18. Translation into French (2004). Le paradoxe du bilinguisme, Double langue maternelle. In Revue Imaginaire et Inconscient, 14.
  14. ^ a b c Kovelman, I., Baker, S.A., & Petitto, L.A. (2008). Age of first bilingual language exposure as a new window into bilingual reading development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11(2), 203-223.
  15. ^ a b Kovelman, I., Shalinsky, M.H., Berens, M.S., & Petitto, L.A. (2008). Shining light on the brain's "Bilingual Signature": a functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy investigation of semantic processing. NeuroImage, 39(1), 1457-1471.
  16. ^ a b c Petitto, L. A., Holowka, S., Sergio, L., & Ostry, D. (2001). Language rhythms in baby hand movements. Nature, 413, 35-36.
  17. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A., Holowka, S., Sergio, L.E., Levy, B., & Ostry, D.J. (2004). Baby hands that move to the rhythm of language: Hearing babies acquiring sign languages babble silently on the hands. Cognition, 93, 43-73
  18. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A., & Marentette, P. (1991). "Babbling in the manual mode: Evidence for the ontogeny of language". Science, 251, 1483-1496. NOTE: This work was also translated into German by Von Adelheid Stahnke and published in the German Scientific American, July 1991, 19-20 ("Komplexe frühe Sprachentwicklung bei gehörlosen Kindern"), and has been reprinted in many child development and language acquisition books.
  19. ^ a b c Petitto, L. A., Zatorre, R., Gauna, K., Nikelski, E.J., Dostie, D., & Evans, A. (2000). Speech-like cerebral activity in profoundly deaf people processing signed languages: Implications for the neural basis of human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(25), 13961-13966.
  20. ^ a b Penhune, V., Cismaru, R., Dorsaint-Pierre, R., Petitto, L.A., & Zatorre, R. (2003). The morphometry of auditory cortex in the congenitally deaf measured using MRI. NeuroImage, 20, 1215-1225.
  21. ^ a b Petitto, L. A. (2009). New Discoveries from the Bilingual Brain and Mind Across the Lifespan: Implications for Education. International Journal of Mind, Brain and Education, 3(4), 185-197.
  22. ^ a b c L.A., & Dunbar, K.N. (2004). "New findings from Educational Neuroscience on Bilingual Brains, Scientific Brains, and the Educated Mind." Monograph, Department of Educational Neuroscience and Human Development, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. @ http://petitto.net/home/about-dr-laura-ann-pettito/educational-neuroscience/
  23. ^ "Educational Neuroscience".
  24. ^ "PhD in Educational Neuroscience".
  25. ^ "VL2 :: Home".
  26. ^ Petitto Lab Homepage: http://petitto.net
  27. ^ "Dr. Laura Ann Petitto". Gallaudet University. Retrieved March 1, 2012.
  28. ^ "About Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto".
  29. ^ a b Terrace, H. S. (1979). Nim. New York: Knopf.
  30. ^ a b Petitto, L.A., & Bellugi, U. (1988). Spatial cognition and brain organization: Clues from the acquisition of a language in space. In J. Stiles-Davies, U. Bellugi, & M. Kritchevsky (Eds.), Spatial cognition: Brain bases and development (pp. 299-341). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  31. ^ Biography of Laura-Ann Petitto (2009). Who's Who in America 65th Edition. Marquis Who's Who: New Jersey
  32. ^ "Child Minder: Psychologist Laura-Ann Petitto Reveals the Human Mind". McGill News Alumni Quarterly, Summer 1993
  33. ^ a b Baker, S.A., Michnick-Golinkoff, R., & Petitto, L.A. (2006). New insights into old puzzles from infants' categorical discrimination of soundless phonetic units. Language Learning and Development, 2(3), 147-162.
  34. ^ a b Petitto, L.A., Langdon, C., Stone, A., Andriola, D., Kartheiser, G., & Cochran, C. (2016). Visual sign phonology: Insights into human reading and language from a natural soundless phonology. WIREs Cognitive Science. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1404.
  35. ^ a b Shalinsky, M.H., Kovelman, I., Berens, M.S., & Petitto, L. A. (2009). Exploring Cognitive Functions in Babies, Children & Adults with Near Infrared Spectroscopy. Journal of Visualized Experiments, 29., doi: 10.3791/1268
  36. ^ Petitto, L.A., Berens, M.S., Kovelman, I., Dubins, M.H., Jasińska, K. & Shalinksy, M. (2012). The "Perceptual Wedge Hypothesis" as the basis for bilingual babies phonetic processing advantage: New insights from fNIRS brain imaging. Brain and Language, 121 (2), 142-155. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2011.05.003.
  37. ^ Stone, A., Petitto, L.A., & Bosworth, R. (2017). Visual sonority modulates infants’ attraction to sign language. Language Learning and Development, 1-19. doi:10.1080/15475441.2017.1404468.
  38. ^ a b Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Babies Develop Language (Axios, March 8, 2018)
  39. ^ a b "The NSF RAVE Revolutionary Learning Tool Prototype".
  40. ^ a b Could a Robot Help Your Child Learn A Language? (Newsweek, October 15, 2017)
  41. ^ a b The Adorable Robot That’s Helping Deaf Children Communicate (WIRED, December 5, 2017)
  42. ^ a b Petitto, L.A. (2007). Cortical images of early language and phonetic development using Near Infrared Spectroscopy. In K. Fischer & A. Battro (Eds.), The Educated Brain. England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 213-232.
  43. ^ Willbur, R.B., & Petitto, L.A. (1983). Discourse structure in American Sign Language conversations. Discourse Processes, 6(3), 225-241.
  44. ^ Wilbur, R.B., & Petitto, L.A. (1981). How to know a conversation when you see one. Journal of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association, 9, 66-81.
  45. ^ a b Charron, F., & Petitto, L.A. (1991). Les premiers signes acquis par des enfants sourds en langue des signes québécoise (LSQ): Comparaison avec les premiers mots. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique Théorique et Appliquée, 10(1), 71-122.
  46. ^ a b c Petitto, L.A. (1987). On the autonomy of language and gesture: Evidence from the acquisition of personal pronouns in American Sign Language. Cognition, 27(1), 1-52.
  47. ^ Holowka, S., & Petitto, L.A. (2002). "Left hemisphere cerebral specialization for babies while babbling". Science, 297(5586), 1515.
  48. ^ New York Times, March 22, 1991, Friday, p.A1 (Front Page) & B6. "Deaf babies use their hands to babble, researcher finds" by Natalie Angier.
  49. ^ Discover Magazine, January 1992, p.6 & 66. "Out of the mouths - and hands - of babes" by David J. Fishman & From the Editor: "Revisionist Thinking" by Paul Hoffman. Petitto named 1 of Top 50 scientific discoveries for 1991
  50. ^ Parenting Magazine, September 1991, p.20. Parenting Extra: "The Power of Babble" by Diana Prufer.
  51. ^ Petitto, L.A. (1994). Modularity and Constraints in Early Lexical Acquisition: Evidence from children's early language and gesture. In P. Bloom (Ed.), Language acquisition: Core readings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  52. ^ Petitto, L.A. (1994). Are sign languages "real" languages? Evidence from American Sign Language and Langue des Signes Québecoise. Signpost (International Quarterly of the Sign Linguistics Association), 7(3), 1-10. (Translated into French, Spanish, and Japanese and Hindi)
  53. ^ Marmor, G.S., & Petitto, L.A. (1979). Simultaneous communication in the classroom: How well is English grammar represented? Sign Language Studies, 3, 99-136.
  54. ^ Berens, M.S., Nelson, J.K., Petitto, L. A., & Dunbar, K.N (2008, November). Identification of Potentially Influential Genes in Pursuing Expertise in the Performing Arts." Presented at 2008 Society for Neuroscience. Washington, DC. Abstract selected by the Public Education and Communications Committee to be included in the annual press release of major discoveries in 2008.
  55. ^ Scassellati, B., Brawer, J., Tsui, K., Nasihati Gilani, S., Malzkuhn, M., Manini, B., Stone, A., Kartheiser, G., Merla, A., Shapiro, A., Traum, D., & Petitto, L.A. (2018). Teaching Language to Deaf Infants with a Robot and a Virtual Human. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp.553; 1-553:13). New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/3173574.3174127
  56. ^ Petitto, L.A., & Holowka, S. (2002). Evaluating attributions of delay and confusion in young bilinguals: Special insights from infants acquiring a signed and an oral language. Sign Language Studies, 3(1), 4-33.
  57. ^ Holowka, S., Brosseau-Lapré, F., & Petitto, L.A. (2002). Semantic and conceptual knowledge underlying bilingual babies' first signs and words. Language Learning, 52(2), 205-262.
  58. ^ Baker, S.A., Idsardi, W.J., Golinkoff, R., & Petitto, L.A. (2005). The perception of [phonetic] handshapes in American Sign Language. Memory & Cognition, 33(5), 887-904(18).
  59. ^ Norton, E.S., Kovelman, I., & Petitto, L. A. (2007). Are there separate neural systems for spelling? New insights into the role of rules and memory in spelling from fMRI. International Journals of Mind, Brain and Education, 1(1), 1-12.
  60. ^ Kovelman, I., Shalinsky, M.H., White, K., Schmitt, S.N., Berens, M.S., Paymer, N., & Petitto, L.A. (2009). New light on language switching form sign-speech bimodal bilinguals using fNIRS brain-imaging. Brain & Language.
  61. ^ Newman-Norlund, R.D., Frey, S.H., Petitto, L.A., Grafton, S.T. (2006). Anatomical substrates of visual and auditory miniature second language learning using fMRI. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(12), 1984-1997.
  62. ^ a b "Distinguished Lectures".
  63. ^ Elected October 2008; and Published in (14 February 2009), "AAAS Fellows, Advancing Science, Serving Society". Washington, D.C., Section on Psychology.
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