We are the Brain, Environment, and Language Lab (BELL) at San Diego State University. We study language and communication development, including influences from where people live, work, and spend their time. Our research spans communication sciences and disorders, education, linguistics, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and public health. We use behavioral methods and functional near-infrared spectroscopy to study language and communication in adolescents and young adults. We work with youth and young adults who are autistic and nonautistic, based on the idea that people’s brains can be wired and function differently in neurodevelopment. We collaborate with others to study language and communication from different perspectives and in different settings.
Some of the questions we ask are:
- What strategies do youth and young adults use to communicate verbally and nonverbally?
- How do everyday experiences shape language and communication abilities?
- How can we support language and communication development beyond the school-age years?
- What can linguistic and cognitive processes tell us about real-world language and communication?
Funding
This research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, CSU Biotech, CSU STEM-Net, and the Drexel University Autism Transitions Research Project.
Contact Us
If you are interested in our research, please visit our Projects page.
If you are a student interested in joining our research team, please visit the students’ information page.
email: BELLab@sdsu.edu
phone: (619) 594-4024
Thank you to Dalton Scott for creating our logo!