Dyslexia, rhythm, language and the developing brain

Usha Goswami CBE FRS FBA is Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. She is also founding Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education. After training as a primary school teacher, Usha decided to pursue research in child psychology, taking a D. Phil. in Psychology at the University of Oxford focused on reading development. Most recently, Usha has been studying the neural mechanisms underpinning language encoding, and relationships to the rhythmic structure of infant- and child-directed speech. Her research goal is to understand the brain basis of dyslexia and speech and language difficulties, and the potential utility of assistive listening technology, coupled with music- and rhythm-based behavioural interventions.

She has received a number of career awards, including the British Psychology Society’s Spearman Medal and President’s Award; the Aspen Brain Forum Senior Investigator Prize in Neuroeducation, New York Academy of Sciences; the Norman Geschwind-Rodin Prize for Dyslexia research, Sweden; the Yidan Prize for Education Research, Hong Kong; and Research Fellowships from the National Academy of Education (USA), the Leverhulme Trust (UK), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). Usha Goswami was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Years Honours List in 2021.