rnewman1 | Language Science

Main profile

Rochelle

Newman

Professor and Chair

Interests:

Bilingualism, Cochlear Implants, Codeswitching, Language Acquisition, Language Disorders, Speech Perception, Word Recognition

Stream Segregation

Projects:

Infant Child Studies, LLRC, LSC Faculty, PULSAR

Units:

Language Science Center, Hearing and Speech Sciences, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science

Degree(s):

Ph.D.,1997, Department of Psychology, State University of New York

Contact:

rnewman1@umd.edu

301-405-4226

0100 LeFrak Hall

Role(s):

Faculty, Management

Website:

Language Development Lab

Dept of Hearing & Speech Sciences website

About:

Anyone who has used voice recognition software on their smartphone or GPS knows how poorly it works. Perceiving speech is difficult, extraordinarily difficult, yet even a 2-year-old can parse language with greater facility than a supercomputer. My research seeks to understand how and why.

More specifically, I am interested in how the brain recognizes and learns words from fluent speech, especially in the context of noise, and how this ability changes with development, particularly in the first two years of life. I also explore differences across groups of individuals, including not only typically-developing monolingual and bilingual children, but those with autism, word-finding difficulties, and those who have recently suffered a concussion.

Collaborators:

Bill Idsardi

Elizabeth Redcay

Current and Former Students: