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Professor Gary Morgan

Honorary Professor

School of Health & Medical Sciences Department of Allied Health

Contact details

Personal links

About

Overview

I have now moved to University Oberta Catalonia

Here is my new webpage: https://sites.google.com/uoc.edu/garymorgan/home

Most of my early work compared signed and spoken language acquisition. The existence of SLI in signing children and gestures in hearing people with language difficulties. Other interest has been in the relationship between language and cognitive development in Theory of Mind and Executive Functions. My current work is moving towards why there is so much variability in how completely deaf children learn spoken language.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
  • BA Psychology, Manchester, United Kingdom

Visiting appointments

  • Visiting Fellowship, University of Lisbon, Portugal - Deaf Residential School, 1997 - present

Fellowships

  • Fellowship, CNR Rome, 1997 - present

Memberships of professional organisations

  • ESRC Peer Review College, 2010 - 2015
  • Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), 2008 - present
  • Executive Board International Association for Child Language Executive (IASCL), 2005 - 2011
  • Member, European COST program Bi-SLI: Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society
  • Science and Innovation Network (China) at UCL

Awards

  • Signature (CACDP) Annual Awards (2012). Shortlisted: Organisational Achievement of the Year (DCAL)
  • Signature (CACDP) Annual Awards (2009). Shortlisted: Organisational Achievement of the Year (DCAL)
  • British Council/Dutch Science Foundation (2005). Academic Exchange Award
  • ESRC (1994). PhD Studentship
  • University of Barcelona (1991). ERASMUS scholarship

Languages

French and Spanish; Castilian

Teaching

Teaching

Visiting professor delivering courses on language and cognitive development:

- University of Paris 8, University of Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona, Trinity College Dublin, University of Amsterdam, University of Salamanca, University of Seville, University of Jyvaskyla.

- Development of Joint professional practice MSc Unit for SLTs and Teachers. Course materials and curriculum for Language Learning and Development module. City University and Institute of Education, London 2002-

- Module Leader Psychology and Language Sciences (Undergraduate and Postgraduate Speech and Language Therapists)

- Module leader Final year dissertation and Evidence Based Practice (4th year SLT undergraduate)

- Member of Department's Professional Studies and Programme Management Committees.

- Member of Department's Strategy & Policy group

- Undergraduate admissions tutor and member of School's admissions policy group 2002-2005

- Chair of Departmental Sign Language and Deaf Studies research group;

- PhD student supervisor and mentor for The Health Foundation Nursing and Allied Health Professionals

- Mentor for Junior Lecturing staff at LCS, City University

- Honorary Senior researcher Centre for Human Communication (UCL) 2006- and Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics (UCL) 1998-

- External examiner: University of Manchester Psychology and Speech and Language Therapy 2005-2009

- National University of Ireland Galway Speech and Language Therapy (2010-) Strathclyde University Speech and Language Therapy (2010-).

- Lectures to MSc Neuroscience language and Communication 'deafness option' UCL.

- Visiting lecturer - sign language linguistics. University of Reading. 2003-2005

- Lecturer Sign language Sociolinguistics. Preston polytechnic. 1997.

- Contribute distance learning module on sign Language Acquisition. University of Manchester, Deaf Education MSc programme. 1997

Research

Research Overview

1. Vision

Aims

In my research and teaching I ask questions about how children develop language, social-cognitive and academic abilities and why in some cases this natural development goes awry. I am committed to making my research inform social and educational policy. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has funded by work continually since 1994.

Language acquisition by Eye

My main research centres on language acquisition and cognitive development. In a series of projects I have established that young children adapt to a dramatic shift in how language is accessed through visual sensory input to follow normal milestones in language development. My work has shown that deaf children of deaf parents acquire sign languages in comparable ways to children learning spoken languages at the phonological, morpho-syntactic and pragmatic levels. This switch in modality provides a window onto the amazing robustness of child language acquisition and the plasticity of the human system for communication. At the same time language acquisition in the visual modality has some impact on the ways children develop signing and how adults interact with signing children.

From 1995 onwards I carried out field work and education projects with the deaf community of Nicaragua where I witnessed an extreme example of the language making capacity of young deaf children. In other work more recently I have been exploring the phonotactic regularities of signed languages and how this aids comprehension. This work is at the level of adult signers segmenting real signs from non-sign sequences. The next step will be to look at how these abilities develop in young children. The goal of this line of research is to further the study of language acquisition in general by demonstrating the unique differences in development stemming from the input in another modality as well as comparing the universal patterns in development that appear despite this modality shift. One current example study is the role of iconicity in early sign acquisition and its overlap with early co-speech gesture and action.

Deafness, Cognition and Language

Since the establishment of the Deafness Cognition and Language research  centre (DCAL) in 2006, my language acquisition work has extended out to the development of social-cognition in deaf children and in particular Theory of Mind (ToM). I am interested in how ToM emerges through early communication and is triggered by language experience. In the context of 95% of deaf children experiencing late and impoverished access to language the question of how ToM develops with or without links to language is intriguing. This work began in the Nicaraguan deaf community. This study revealed aspects of ToM can develop even in the face of very late language acquisition. Currently I led a large study of British 2-4 year old deaf children from deaf and hearing parents. In this work we evaluated parent-child communication and its influence on implicit and explicit ToM reasoning. The findings of this research link to theories of ToM development and deaf children's educational and social development. Currently in this line of research I am currently studying the development of executive functions in deaf children.

Disruption to development or processing of language

My other main interests are atypical language and cognitive development. I led a study of a large group of deaf children who have specific language impairments (SLI). Despite normal intelligence, social and linguistic stimulation they are not picking up the rules of language. This is the first study in the world to look at this population. The results will lead to a greater understanding of what the core SLI deficit might be (if there is a single one) as well as more effective language intervention for deaf children. In other projects I am following the linguistic savant Christopher's development of sign language, hearing children and adults' use of gesture with developmental and acquired language impairments and the effects of visual impairments on sign language structure. The goal of this line of research is to understand more about the language and cognitive architecture of the typical individual by investigating disruptions and dissociations.

Research Areas

- Psychology of deafness
- Language and cognitive development

Research Centres

- DCAL
- UCL

Grants

- (2012). Festival of Science debate and workshops: Executive Functions - ESRC. £2000
- (2011). Festival of Science debate and workshops: Bilingualism - ESRC. £2000
- (2011-2014). Senior Scientist advisor. Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship. Mentor for Dr. Wolfgang Mann. £90,000
- (2011-2015). Co-PI ESRC DCAL. £4.5 million.
- (2005-2010). Co-PI ESRC DCAL. £3.4 million. Research Centres are major investments in one or more of the ESRC's priority themes. They are funded for an initial period of ten years, subject to a satisfactory mid-term review.

Grants outside DCAL:

- (2011-2012). £70,000. Co-PI. Dunhill Medical Trust. Gesture use in people with aphasia
- (2008-2011). City University London post-doctoral fellowship. Mentor for Dr. Wolfgang Mann.
- (2008-2011). The Leverhume Trust post-doctoral Early career fellowship. Mentor for Dr. Chloe Marshall.
- (2007). Host for the ESRC - SSRC Collaborative Visiting Fellows (Gaurav Mathur).
- (2006-2009). PI. ESRC Sign Segmentation. £330,000
- (2007-2008). - PI. ESF exploratory workshop €14,000
- (2007-2008). - PI. ESRC research seminar series: sign language and gestures overlaps £15,000
- (2002-2003). PI. ESRC Sign language acquisition £45,000
- (2008) Organiser. Festival of Science debate and workshops - ESRC. £2000
- (2007) Organiser. Festival of Science debate and workshops - ESRC. £2000
- (2007) £4800 Co-PI. Aphasia and gesture: methods. With Lucy Dipper and Naomi Cocks
- (2007) £5000 Co-PI. SLI and gesture. With Nicola Botting and Sotaro Kita
- (2006) Organiser. Research feedback workshop. City University KT. £1500
- (2006) £5000 Co-PI. Aphasia and gesture. With Naomi Cocks
- (2005) £5000 PI. Nonsense sign repetition. With Chloe Marshall.
- (2002) £5000. PI. Sign language development. With Bencie Woll and Isabelle Barriere.

Research assistants

Dr. Tanya Denmark, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dcal/team/directorsresearch/tanyadenmark

Fellows

- Dr Wolfgang Mann
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dcal/team/associatesadmin/wolfgangmann

Research students

Ciara Kelly (with Danielle Mathews, Univ. Sheffield)

Thesis title: Deaf children's cognitive development

Further information: 2011-

Gerardo Ortega

Thesis title: Psycholinguistic studies of signed languages

Further information: 2008 -

K. Mason

Thesis title: Deaf children's EF skills

Further information: DCAL studentship

1stsupervisor

  • Martina Curtin, Research Student
  • Gabrielle Sharpe, Research Student

Publications

Publications by category

Books (2)

  • Orfanidou, E., Woll, B. and Morgan, G. (Eds.), (2015). Research Methods in Sign Language Studies. Wiley. ISBN 9781118271414.
  • Smith, N., Tsimpli, I., Morgan, G. and Morgan, B. (Eds.), (2011). The signs of a savant: Language against the odds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521617697.

Chapters (23)

  • Becker, C. and Morgan, G. (2025). Communication Interventions Targeting Theory of Mind in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. Communication Interventions with Deaf People (pp. 331-350). Oxford University PressOxford. ISBN 9780198872757.
  • Morgan, G. (2022). Working Memory and Childhood Deafness. The Cambridge Handbook of Working Memory and Language (pp. 801-819). Cambridge University Press.
  • Morgan, G., Jones, A. and Botting, N. (2020). Links between language and cognitive development of deaf children. Trends in Language Acquisition Research (pp. 115-131). John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027204493.
  • Morgan, G. (2020). Deafness, cognition and language. Trends in Language Acquisition Research (pp. 1-13). John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027204493.
  • Herman, R., Shield, A. and Morgan, G. (2019). Sign language development in deaf children with language impairments and autism spectrum disorders. Manual Sign Acquisition in Children with Developmental Disabilities (pp. 133-149).
  • Herman, R., Shield, A. and Morgan, G. (2019). Sign language development in deaf children with additional needs. Manual Sign Acquisition in Children with Developmental Disabilities (pp. 133-151). New York: Nova Sciences Publishers. ISBN 9781536153781.
  • In Slaughter, V. and de Rosnay, M. (Eds.), (2016). Theory of Mind Development in Context. In Routledge.
  • Kyle, F.E. (2015). Research Methods in Studying Reading and Literacy Development in Deaf Children Who Sign. (pp. 300-318). Wiley. ISBN 9781118271414.
  • Singleton, J.L., Martin, A.J. and Morgan, G. (2015). Ethics, Deaf‐Friendly Research, and Good Practice When Studying Sign Languages. (pp. 5-20). Wiley. ISBN 9781118271414.
  • Herman, R., Rowley, K., Marshall, C.R., Mason, K., Atkinson, J., Woll, B.... Morgan, G. (2014). Profiling SLI in Deaf Children who are Sign Language Users. Multilingual Aspects of Signed Language Communication and Disorder (pp. 45-69).
  • Meristo, M., Hjelmquist, E. and Morgan, G. (2011). How access to language affects theory of mind in deaf children. In Siegal, M. and Surian, L. (Eds.), Access to language and cognitive development (pp. 44-61). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199592722.
  • Herman, R. and Morgan, G. (2011). Deafness, language and communication. In Hilari, K. and Botting, N. (Eds.), The impact of communication disability across the lifespan Guilford, UK: J&R Press Ltd.. ISBN 9781907826030.
  • Herman, R.C. and Morgan, G. (2010). Deafness, language & communication. In Botting, N. and Hilari, K. (Eds.), The Impact of Communication Disability Across the Lifespan London, England: J & R Press. ISBN 9781907826030.
  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (2009). Applied linguistic studies of sign language. In Wei, L. and Cook, V. (Eds.), Contemporary applied linguistics: Language teaching and learning London: Continuum Intl Pub Group. ISBN 9780826496805.
  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (2009). Sign Linguistics, Sign Language Learning and Sign Bilingualism. Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 2 Linguistics for the Real World (pp. 223-241).
  • Morgan, G. (2005). The development of narrative in British Sign Language. In Schick, B., Marschark, M. and Spencer, P. (Eds.), Advances in the sign language development of deaf children New York: Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195180947.
  • Morgan, G. (2005). Biology and behavior: Insights from the acquisition of sign language. In Cutler, A. (Ed.), Twenty-First Century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones (pp. 191-206). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 9780805852080.
  • In Emmorey, K. (Ed.), (2003). Perspectives on Classifier Constructions in Sign Languages. In Psychology Press.
  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (2003). The development of reference switching encoded through body classifiers in BSL. In Emmorey, K. (Ed.), Perspectives on classifer constructions in sign languages Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 9780805842692.
  • Morgan, G., Woll, B., Smith, N. and Tsimpli, I.M. (2002). The effects of modality on BSL development in an exceptional learner. In Conference, T.L.S., Meier, R., Cormier, K.A. and Quinto-Pozos, D.G. (Eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages (pp. 422-441). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521803854.
  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (2002). Conclusions and directions for further research. In Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (Eds.), Directions in sign language acquisition (pp. 291-299). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027234728.
  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (2002). The development of complex sentences in British Sign Language. In Morgan, G. and Woll, B. (Eds.), Directions in sign language acquisition (pp. 259-280). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027234728.
  • Morgan, G. (1999). Event packaging in British Sign Language discourse. In Winston, E. (Ed.), Storytelling and conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities (pp. 27-58). Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. ISBN 9781563680816.

Conference paper and proceedings

  • Morgan, G. and Woll, B. The development of reference switching encoded through body classifiers in British Sign Language. .

Journal articles (112)

Professional activities

Editorial activity

  • Journal of Deaf Studies and Education ~ Language Interaction and Acquisition ~ Frontiers in Language Sciences, Editorial Board.

Events/conferences (10)

  • Language delay - does it matter? Symposium. (2012).
    Description: 37th Boston University Conference on language development. Invited speaker.
  • Language and cognition in deaf children. Jyväskylä, Finland (2012).
    Description: Nordic conference on bilingual issues concerning deaf children. University of Jyväskylä. Invited speaker (plenary).
  • The spontaneous representational gestures of pre-schoolers: Comparison across culture and language. (2012).
    Description: ISGS conference. Conference talk (symposium organiser).
  • Discussant for Multimodality and Language Learning Workshop MPI. Nijmegen (2012).
    Description: Invited speaker.
  • Language & Theory of Mind reasoning: seminar in honour of Michael Siegal. (2012).
    Description: Invited speaker. University of Sheffield. http://shef.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academic/michael-siegal
  • Iconicity and Language Development. (2012).
    Description: Invited speaker. Birkbeck college.
  • El futur de les llengües de signes es a mans dels nadons (In the hands of babes: the future of sign languages). Barcelona (2012).
    Description: Invited speaker. In Catalan. l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
  • Iconicity and Language Development. (2012).
    Description: Psycholinguistics in the SouthEast (PsyLingSE). UCL. Conference talk.
  • The origins of Theory of Mind reasoning. (2012).
    Description: University of Lancaster. Invited speaker.
  • Language delay affects Theory of Mind reasoning in non-verbal tasks. University of Athens (2012).
    Description: Invited speaker. Video: http://www.blod.gr/lectures/Pages/viewlecture.aspx?LectureID=370

Other (5)

  • Vice President nomination for the International Association for the Study of Child Language , International Association for the Study of Child Language ( 2010).
  • Mentor for Early Career PIs , Faculty of Life Sciences, UCL ( 2009).
  • European Bureau of Lesser used languages consultant - Catalan speakers in Alghero ( 1999).
  • PhD summer school in Language Acquisition. Denmark. ( 1997).
  • Nicaragua fieldwork visit ESRC scholarship ( 1994).