Mental Lexicon Summer Institute

Our primary consideration in the MCRI project across sites has been to promote training opportunities for our students. In turn, our students have identified an opportunity to share the advantages they gained through these training opportunities with a larger group. To fully realize this project’s training mandate, we will work with our students to create a biennial Summer Institute on the Mental Lexicon, alternating with the biennial International Conference on the Mental Lexicon. The inaugural session will be held on August 26, 27 and 28 in Montreal.

The above-mentioned Mental Lexicon Summer Institute will not only bring together students working on the project, but also bring them into contact with students and faculty from around the world. We know from our own experience that lasting and productive professional relationships are often formed very early on, and can have beneficial effects throughout one’s career. It is our expectation, therefore, that this initiative will have a long-term positive effect upon the field and the next generation of researchers within it.

New Software for Assistive Communication Devices

One recent development is a new application of the findings of our psycholinguistic experiments in the design of software built into assistive devices that facilitate communication among individuals with stroke and severe aphasia.  In collaboration with clinical experts, we are developing a system that can use the results of our experimental studies to optimally configure software that will take into account the lexical deficits of specific individuals. At a second step, we will be able to monitor the short-term and long-term changes that occur following the use of such assistive devices. To our knowledge, this is the first time that mental lexicon research will be harnessed to aid clinicians in addressing the concrete communication needs of individuals with aphasia.

Studying a Special Type of Second Language Acquisition

In addition, we are working with a new group of stakeholders composed of hearing-impaired individuals who are users of the French sign language (LSQ) and who are in the process of learning written French as a second language.  Working in close collaboration with clinicians and clinical researchers in this area, Eva Kehayia together with C. Dubuisson and A.M. Parisot of the LSQ group are contributing the first psycholinguistic data on lexical access and representation in French-signing individuals. Our goal is to generate findings that will guide clinicians and educators towards better methods of instruction of written French as a second language in hearing-impaired individuals.