Alumni
The PhD in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) Program opened its doors to the first class of Ph.D. students in Fall 2013. The ground-breaking program is thrilled to recognize the students who have graduated and/or successfully defended their dissertation and are on the way to graduation.
Dr. Diana Andriola
Alumna, PEN
Dissertation: "The Neurobiological Correlates of Phonological Awareness and Reading Outcomes in Deaf Children"
Graduation: 2019
Current Position: Science Education and Outreach Specialist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Dr. Andriola (Dr. Clifton Langdon, Advisor) worked as a research assistant in Dr. Langdon's Language and Educational Neuroscience (LENS) lab. During her previous assistantship with Petitto's Brain and Language Lab for Neuroimaging (BL2), Dr. Andriola received certification in functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS).
In her doctoral research, Dr. Andriola used fNIRS to investigate the cognitive mechanisms supporting spoken and signed language phonological awareness, and whether sign language phonological awareness supports reading development in deaf children. Findings from this research provide insight into the impact of early language exposure and inform educational policy and practice for literacy instruction with deaf children.
This research is the first to use an interdisciplinary neuroscience approach to examine phonological awareness for both signed and spoken language in children and promises to shed new light on the brain’s capacity for language processing, regardless of the language modality.
Secondary Reader (Advisor): Dr. Gaurav Mathur
- Age of sign-speech bilingual language exposure and syntactic processing in deaf individuals with cochlear implants using functional near infrared spectroscopy
Petitto, L.A., Stone, A., Andriola, D., & Langdon, C. (2016, accepted). Age of sign-speech bilingual language exposure and syntactic processing in deaf individuals with cochlear implants using functional near infrared spectroscopy. Poster submitted for consideration at the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, IL. (Stone true first author here.) - Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Speed Does Not Predict Reading in Deaf Readers: Implications for Theoretical Accounts of RAN.
Andriola, D. & Allen, T.E. (2018, June). Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Speed Does Not Predict Reading in Deaf Readers: Implications for Theoretical Accounts of RAN. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco. - Rapid Automatized Naming Speed, Sign Language Skill, Phonological Awareness, and Early Reading in 5-year-old Deaf Children.
Andriola, D., Palatino, W., & Allen, T.E. (2018, March). Rapid Automatized Naming Speed, Sign Language Skill, Phonological Awareness, and Early Reading in 5-year-old Deaf Children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention, Denver. - Visual sign phonology: Insights into human reading and language from a natural soundless phonology
Petitto, L.A., Langdon, C., Stone, A., Andriola, D., Kartheiser, G., & Cochran, C. (2016). Visual sign phonology: Insights into human reading and language from a natural soundless phonology. WIREs Cognitive Science.