Units

ACTE - Autism in Context: theory and experiment

The interfaculty research group ACTE (Autism in Context: Theory and Experiment) started in 2015 at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Our main objective is to contribute to a better understanding of language development and communication skills in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Our research focuses in particular on the origins of language delays, social communication skills in children and adults and the implications of social communication differences in everyday interactions. We bring together investigation techniques from cognitive psychology, social psychology and linguistics within an ecological research program, whose experimental dimension is geared towards specific sensibilities of children and adults with autism.  

Across all components of the ACTE project, we consider the great heterogeneity that characterises the autism spectrum. Whenever possible, we will also attempt to gain insight to children’s individual progression and evolution, by designing longitudinal studies.

Consciousness, Cognition & Computation Group

The goal of the Co3 is to contribute to our understanding of the elementary cognitive processes involved in learning, cognitive development, and automaticity. One of the central research topics of the Co3 concerns the role of consciousness in these elementary processes, and in particular the issue of determining which can occur without awareness. The research projects of the Co3 generally combine behavioral methods (experimentation with healthy participants in a lifelong perspective and with brain-damaged patients), modelling (neural networks), and neuroimaging methods (PET, MEG et fMRI). Recently, a Babylab has been installed, in other words a laboratory dedicated to the study of the development of the infants and toddlers' cognitive and social abilities. http://babylab.ulb.ac.be/Bienvenue.html

Projetcs

Belgian 'Language in Autism' Study

The Belgian 'Language in Autism' Study or BeLAS is a national research project on language development in autism conducted collaboratively at three sites: Université libre de Bruxelles, Universiteit Gent & KU Leuven.

BeLAS brings together researchers from three Belgian French- and Dutch-speaking universities: ULB, UGent and KU Leuven. The aim of BeLAS is to reach out to French- and Dutch-speaking children all over Belgium. To do this, we have transformed three vans into mobile research centres, our LabMobiles. The LabMobile has been furnished in a cosy way and has eveyrthing to carry out the study activities with your child and an accompanying parent.

No need to travel to the university, we come to you!

Elementary mechanisms of implicit statistical learning and social cognition: A developmental approach

The mechanisms through which the child learn to master a structured set of complex stimuli is an centralissue in developmental psychology. Indeed, language learning constitutes the paradigmatic example ofthis situation. Importantly, language learning takes place within a complex social context involving theinteraction between several individuals with communicative intentions (Baldwin, 1995; Brooks &Meltzoff, 2005; Bruner, 1983; Tomasello, 2003a, 2003b; Tomasello & Farrar, 1986). However, these theoriesand models have not yet been tested in the context of early speech and language learning (Kuhl, 2007)and the available data demonstrating the ability of infants and toddlers to detect the others' intentionsremain sparse (Behne, Carpenter, Call & Tomasello, 2005).