Support for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Language and Autism Courses

The NLM Family Foundation (NLMFF), in partnership with other autism-focused organizations, supports educational programs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) related to autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, the NLMFF will provide support of the CSHL’s language and autism courses including the Genetics & Neurobiology of Language course in summer 2024, with Simon Fisher, David Poeppel and Kate Watkins as lead instructors, and the Autism Spectrum Disorders course which will be offered in summer 2025 with Daniele Fallin, James McPartland, Sergiu Pasca and Jeremy Veenstra-Vander Weele as instructors.

The Genetics & Neurobiology of Language will be held at the Laboratory’s Banbury Conference Center located on the north shore of Long Island. It will focus on the following questions: Why are children able to acquire highly sophisticated language abilities without needing to be taught? What are the neurobiological and neurophysiological processes that underpin human speech and language, and how do they go awry in developmental and acquired disorders? Which genetic factors contribute to this remarkable suite of human skills, and are there evolutionary precursors that we can study in other species? This unique CSHL course, in its fifth iteration, addresses these core questions about the bases and origins of speech and language, through talks, interactive sessions, keynotes and debates, involving leading experts from a range of disciplines. It integrates the state-of-the-art from complementary perspectives, including development, cognitive models, neural basis, gene identification, functional genomics, model systems and comparative/evolutionary studies.  2024 speakers include:

Marina Bedny, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Pascal Belin, Aix-Marseille University

Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Evelina Fedorenko, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Julia Fischer, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Goettingen, Germany

Tecumseh Fitch, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Stephanie Forkel, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

Liberty Hamilton, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Catherine Hobaiter, University of St Andrews

Christian Kell, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

Genevieve Konopka, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX

Mairead MacSweeney, University College London, Windsor, United Kingdom

Daniela Vallentin, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany

Sonja Vernes, The University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Netherlands