Saloni Krishnan is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on childhood communication disorders, such as DLD (developmental language disorder) and dyslexia. Saloni is based at UCL Language and Cognition, where she is Associate Professor in Developmental Language Sciences.
Saloni has received funding from the Academy of Medical Sciences, MRC and ESRC, and currently leads a team investigating the links between motivation and language learning. Saloni has won several prizes for her research, including the Neil O’Connor Award from the British Psychological Society and the NDAS Mid-Career Prize. She was named a Rising Star by the Association of Psychological Sciences in 2022.
Her research has featured on the BBC, the Guardian, Daily Mail, and the Boston Globe. She serves as an editorial board member at Communications Psychology, an associate editor at the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, and an affiliate editor at the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
She is a committee member of the British Psychological Society’s Developmental section and a member of the UK Young Academy. She uses these roles to advocate for a positive, rigorous, and inclusive research culture.
What is the main aim of your research (in this context) and what key questions or issues does it address?
I'm interested in how humans learn to speak (and read) and why this sometimes doesn’t go as effortlessly as we expect. To do this, I try and use experimental methods which help us understand the different processes involved in language learning – for example, does language learning inherently draw on the same processes as remembering long sequences? I also use neuroimaging to understand how brain structure and function can relate to language skills.
What does your research involve you actually doing on a daily basis, and where do you typically carry out your work?
To understand how the developing brain processes language, I am frequently trying to convince young children to come to the lab and lie still in MRI scanners.
What outcomes or contributions do you hope your research will lead to in the future?
I hope by understanding the processes involved in language learning, my research will lead to tangible evidence-based tools to help these children who struggle to learn language.
What aspect of your work is most exciting to you right now?
At the moment, I am leading a line of work that focuses on the intrinsic drive to learn language. We are doing several experiments to try and pin down why we feel motivated to learn words, and whether being motivated confers a learning advantage. We are also examining how the skills the individual brings to the task might influence motivation.
How does this year’s symposium theme, “How can learning a second language be made effortless?”, relate to your research?
I’m really excited by this theme! Given my research on motivation, I was thinking about how the reward one derived from learning language would need to outvalue the cost (for example, time, money for lessons). I’ve also been thinking about the value of confidence, and when we feel like the language can be used “effortlessly”.
Is there anything else you’d like to add that you feel is relevant?
I’ll add that I’m really fascinated by apps like DuoLingo which seem to understand how to motivate learners, and it would be exciting to think about how such techniques could be used to support those with language learning difficulties.