Laura-Ann Petitto (born c. 1954) is a cognitive neuroscientist and a developmental cognitive neuroscientist known for her research and scientific discoveries involving the language capacity of chimpanzees,[1][2][3][4][5] the biological bases of language in humans, especially early language acquisition (be it language on the hands in signed languages or on the tongue in spoken languages),[6][7][8] early reading,[9][10] and bilingualism, bilingual reading, and the bilingual brain.[11][12][13][14][15] Significant scientific discoveries include the existence of linguistic babbling on the hands of deaf babies (“manual babbling”)[16][17][18] and the equivalent neural processing of signed and spoken languages in the human brain.[19][20] She is recognized for her contributions to the creation of the new scientific discipline, called educational neuroscience.[21][22] Petitto chaired a new undergraduate department at Dartmouth College, called "Educational Neuroscience and Human Development" (2002-2007), and was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation and Dartmouth's Science of Learning Center, called the "Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience" (2004-2007).[23] At Gallaudet University (2011–present), Petitto led a team in the creation of the first PhD in Educational Neuroscience program in the United States.[24] Petitto is the Co-Principal Investigator as well as Science Director of the National Science Foundation and Gallaudet University’s Science of Learning Center, called the "Visual Language and Visual Learning Center (VL2)".[25] Petitto is also founder and Scientific Director of the Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging (“BL2”) at Gallaudet University.[26][27][28]
^Petitto, L.A., "Nim Chimpsky: A Life That was Rich Beyond Words". The Washington Post, Saturday March 18, 2000.
^Seidenberg, M. S., & Petitto, L. A. (1987). Communication, symbolic communication, and language in child and chimpanzee: Comment on Savage-Rumbaugh, McDonald, Sevcik, Hopkins, and Rupert (1986). Journal of Experimental Psychology, General, 116(3), 279-287.
^Terrace, H.S., Petitto, L.A., Sanders, R.J., & Bever, T.G. (1979). Can an ape create a sentence? Science, 206, 891-902.
^Petitto, L.A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (1979). On the evidence for linguistic abilities in signing apes. Brain and Language, 8, 72-88.
^Seidenberg, M.S., & Petitto, L.A. (1979). Signing behavior in apes: A critical review. Cognition, 7, 177-215.
^Petitto, L.A. (2005). How the brain begets language: On the neural tissue underlying human language acquisition. Chapter in J. McGilvray (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky. England: Cambridge University Press, pp 84-101.
^Petitto, L.A. (1997). In the beginning: On the genetic and environmental factors that make early language acquisition possible. In M. Gopnik (Ed.), The inheritance and innateness of grammars (pp. 45-69). England: Oxford University Press.
^Petitto, L.A. (1988). "Language" in the pre-linguistic child. In F. Kessel (Ed.), Development of language and language researchers: Essays in honor of Roger Brown (pp. 187-221). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
^Jasinska, K.K., Berens, M., Kovelman, I., & Petitto, L.A. (2016). Bilingualism yields language-specific plasticity in left hemisphere’s circuitry for learning to read in young children. Neuropsychologia. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.11.018
^Jasińska, K. & Petitto, L.A. (2014). Development of Neural Systems for Reading in the Monolingual and Bilingual Brain: New Insights from functional Near Infrared
^Petitto, L.A., Katerelos, M., Levy, B., Gauna, K., Tétrault, K., & Ferraro, V. (2001). Bilingual sign and oral language acquisition from birth: Implications for mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 28(2), 453-496.
^Kovelman, I., Baker, S.A., & Petitto, L. A. (2008). Bilingual and Monolingual brains compared: An fMRI investigation of syntactic processing and a possible "neural signature" of bilingualism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(1), 153-169.
^Petitto, L.A., & Kovelman, I. (2003). The Bilingual Paradox: How signing-speaking bilingual children help us to resolve bilingual issues and teach us about the brain's mechanisms underlying all language acquisition. Learning Languages, 8(3), 5-18. Translation into French (2004). Le paradoxe du bilinguisme, Double langue maternelle. In Revue Imaginaire et Inconscient, 14.
^Kovelman, I., Baker, S.A., & Petitto, L.A. (2008). Age of first bilingual language exposure as a new window into bilingual reading development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11(2), 203-223.
^Kovelman, I., Shalinsky, M.H., Berens, M.S., & Petitto, L.A. (2008). Shining light on the brain's "Bilingual Signature": a functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy investigation of semantic processing. NeuroImage, 39(1), 1457-1471.
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^Petitto, L. A., Zatorre, R., Gauna, K., Nikelski, E.J., Dostie, D., & Evans, A. (2000). Speech-like cerebral activity in profoundly deaf people processing signed languages: Implications for the neural basis of human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(25), 13961-13966.
^Penhune, V., Cismaru, R., Dorsaint-Pierre, R., Petitto, L.A., & Zatorre, R. (2003). The morphometry of auditory cortex in the congenitally deaf measured using MRI. NeuroImage, 20, 1215-1225.
^Petitto, L. A. (2009). New Discoveries from the Bilingual Brain and Mind Across the Lifespan: Implications for Education. International Journal of Mind, Brain and Education, 3(4), 185-197.
^L.A., & Dunbar, K.N. (2004). "New findings from Educational Neuroscience on Bilingual Brains, Scientific Brains, and the Educated Mind." Monograph, Department of Educational Neuroscience and Human Development, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. @ http://petitto.net/home/about-dr-laura-ann-pettito/educational-neuroscience/