Amdanom ni

Dr Manon Jones, Cyfarwyddw manon.jones@bangor.ac.uk

Mae Dr Jones yn uwch ddarlithydd yn yr Ysgol Gwyddorau Dynol ac Ymddygiadol ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Mae ei hymchwil mewn gwyddor gwybyddol (niwro), darllen ac iaith, gyda phwyslais penodol ar ddarllen medrus mewn oedolion, dyslecsia datblygiadol, a deulythrenedd. Mae ganddi ddiddordeb arbennig mewn egluro'r sgiliau gwybyddol sy'n galluogi rhai darllenwyr i fod yn rhugl iawn, gydag eraill byth yn cyrraedd lefelau rhuglder tebyg er eu bod yn ddeallus iawn ac yn gallu mynegi eu hunain yn dda. Yn ogystal â chynnal arbrofion i ymchwilio i'r materion hyn yn ei labordy, Dr. Jones yw Prif Ymchwilydd y project Cyfarwyddyd Iaith a Llythrennedd o Bell (www.rillresearch.org), rhaglen a gynlluniwyd i gynorthwyo plant oed cynradd i ddysgu o bell yn ystod y cyfnodau clo, ac i ddal i fyny â sgiliau iaith a llythrennedd yn yr ystafell ddosbarth.

Mrs Joanna Dunton, M Ed, AMBDA, Cyfarwyddwr Addysgu j.dunton@bangor.ac.uk

Mae Mrs Dunton wedi dysgu plant o bob oed ac mewn gwahanol leoliadau yn ystod ei gyrfa, gan gynnwys mewn ysgolion arbennig a cholegau addysg bellach. Ymunodd â thîm addysgu Canolfan Dyslecsia Miles ar ôl cwblhau'r cwrs AMBDA ym Mangor, ac aeth ymlaen i fod yn Gyfarwyddwr Addysgu'r Ganolfan. Hi yw arweinydd modiwl cyrsiau Meistr achrededig Cymdeithas Dyslecsia Prydain a gyflwynir yn yr Ysgol Addysg, Prifysgol Bangor. Mae ar hyn o bryd yn aelod gweithredol o Fwrdd Achredu'r Gymdeithas.

Dr Cameron Downing, c.downing@leedstrinity.co.uk

Mae Dr. Downing yn ddarlithydd ym Mhrifysgol y Drindod, Leeds, ac yn aelod cysylltiol o Ganolfan Dyslecsia Miles. Mae ganddo ddiddordeb yn y ffordd yr ydym ni'n dysgu darllen ac ysgrifennu a beth sy'n digwydd pan rydym ni'n cael trafferth gwneud hynny. Mae'r diddordeb hwn yn rhychwantu tri maes cysylltiedig gan gynnwys (a) datblygu sillafu a llawysgrifen, (b) anhwylderau sy'n amharu ar ein gallu i ddysgu ysgrifennu (e.e. dyslecsia, anhwylder cydgysylltu datblygiadol, a dysgraphia), ac (c) ymdrin ag anawsterau llythrennedd (o bell).

Dr Marketa Caravolas, Darllenydd mewn Seicoleg m.caravolas@bangor.ac.uk

Mae Dr. Caravolas yn Athro Cysylltiol mewn Seicoleg ym Mhrifysgol Bangor a hi oedd cyfarwyddwr Canolfan Dyslecsia Miles rhwng 2008 a 2014. Mae ei diddordebau ymchwil mewn datblygu llythrennedd ac anhwylderau cysylltiedig â hynny ac mae ei hysgolheictod yn rhychwantu theori ac ymarfer. Mae hi’n canolbwyntio ar seicoieithyddiaeth ddatblygiadol a llythrennedd cynnar, datblygiad ffonolegol a sillafu yng nghyd-destun llythrennedd cysylltiedig â’r wyddor. Nodwedd arbennig o'i gwaith yw ymchwil traws-ieithyddol ynglŷn â ffactorau iaith-gyffredinol ac iaith-benodol mewn datblygiad darllen a sillafu ymysg pobl heb a gyda dyslecsia arnynt. Mae hi hefyd wedi creu casgliad o brofion cynhwysfawr ar gyfer asesu a diagnosio anawsterau darllen a sillafu yn yr ieithoedd Tsiec a Slofac, ac ar hyn o bryd mae'n gweithio gyda chydweithwyr ar gasgliad sylweddol o brofion aml-iaith i asesu llythrennedd cynnar (MABEL), sy'n cynnwys mesurau cyfochrog cysylltiedig â llythrennedd yn Saesneg, Ffrangeg, Sbaeneg, Tsieceg, Slofac a Chymraeg.

Kelly Edwards, kelly.edwards@bangor.ac.uk

Mae Kelly Edwards yn aelod hirsefydlog o'r tîm, ar ôl ymuno dros 15 mlynedd yn ôl, ac mae'n gyfrifol am redeg y Ganolfan o ddydd i ddydd. Mae'r profiad y mae wedi'i ennill yn ei galluogi i ddarparu cyngor, arweiniad a gwybodaeth am y gwasanaethau niferus a gynigiwn. Mae Kelly hefyd yn rheoli ac yn goruchwylio'r Gwasanaeth Asesu ac Addysgu, gan gydlynu a threfnu’r apwyntiadau ar gyfer asesiadau, addysgu ac ymgynghori; mae hi'n gweithio'n agos gyda'n Hathrawon Arbenigol, Aseswyr Arbenigol a’n Seicolegwyr Addysg i sicrhau ein bod yn darparu'r gwasanaeth gorau y gallwn ei gynnig.

Ruth Elliott, Cydlynydd LEAPS ruth.elliott@bangor.ac.uk

Ruth yw cydlynydd y rhaglen LEAPS i Ganolfan Dyslecsia Miles. Cwrs i blant sy’n cael trafferth gyda’u sgiliau llythrennedd yw LEAPS i ddatblygu eu sgiliau darllen ac ysgrifennu.  Bydd yn gweithio gyda gwirfoddolwyr a staff dysgu i gyflwyno cyrsiau i grwpiau o ddisgyblion yn CA2 a CA3, sydd angen hwb i’w sgiliau llythrennedd. Noddir a chefnogir rhaglen LEAPS gan Clogau Gold https://www.clogau.co.uk

Dr Manon Jones, Senior Lecturer in Psychology manon.jones@bangor.ac.uk

Manon welcomes informal enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in projects related to the cognitive and neurocognitive underpinnings of reading, dyslexia, language production and bilingualism. Please submit a draft research proposal (1–2 pages) to the above email address.

 

 

Dr Marketa Caravolas, Reader in Psychology m.caravolas@bangor.ac.uk

My main research interests are in literacy development in typical populations and in groups with Specific Learning Difficulties, especially dyslexia. Much of my work includes longitudinal and cross-linguistic designs in monolingual and bilingual learners. A number of my research projects have led to the development of standarised test batteries for the assessment of children’s literacy skills in languages including English, Czech, Slovak, Spanish and Welsh.

I work with researchers in the UK as well as in a number of countries in Europe and North America, and have headed up a wide variety of externally-funded, international projects pertaining to literacy development and its disorders.

 

Prof Debbie Mills, Professor in Psychology d.l.mills@bangor.ac.uk

Brain and language development, Williams syndrome, interactions between genes, brain, and behaviour.
Professor Debbie Mills is a member of the Language, bilingualism, and cognitive development and Social Neuroscience Research groups.

 

Dr Gary Oppenheim, Lecturer in Psychology g.m.oppenheim@bangor.ac.uk

I use computational modeling, along with behavoural and neurophysiological laboratory experiments and cognitive neuropsychological methods to reverse engineer the architectures and algorithms underlying language production.  Much of my current work focuses on word learning and word retrieval.  A second line of research considers the little voice that is supposed to be in your head: inner speech.

 

 

Prof Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience g.thierry@bangor.ac.uk

Using experimental psychology and electroencephalography, Guillaume Thierry studies language comprehension in the auditory and visual modalities, and mainly the processing of meaning by the human brain, i.e., semantic access. Since he started his career at Bangor University in 2000, Professor Thierry has investigated a range of themes, such as verbal/non-verbal dissociations, visual object recognition, colour perception, functional cerebral asymmetry, language-emotion interactions, language development, developmental dyslexia, and bilingualism. Since 2005, Prof. Thierry’s has received funding form the BBSRC, the ESRC, the AHRC, the European Research Council, and the British Academy to investigate the integration of meaning in infants and adults at lexical, syntactic, and conceptual levels, using behavioural measurements, event-related brain potentials, eye-tracking and functional neuroimaging, looking at differences between sensory modalities, different languages in bilinguals, and coding system (verbal / nonverbal). Prof. Thierry’s core research question is how the human brain crystallises knowledge and builds up a meaningful representation of the world around it. He now focuses on linguistic relativity and the philosophical question of mental freedom.

 

Dr Marie-Josephe Tainturier, Senior Lecturer in Psychology m.j.tainturier@bangor.ac.uk

The main goal of my research programme is to contribute to a better understanding of the psychological and neural mechanisms that underlie language processing in neuro-typical populations as well as their breakdown in neurological conditions. Within the field of written language processing I am best known for my work using cognitive neuropsychological methods, that is, analyses of the performance of brain-damaged individuals, to inform models of normal cognitive function, particularly with regards to written language. Over the years, I have advanced knowledge on a number of important theoretical questions in this field including (a) the role of phonology in written word production, (b) the nature of sublexical spelling processes (i.e., those used to generate plausible spellings for new words) (c) the relationship between lexical (memorised) and sublexical processes in spelling, (d) the structure of orthographic representations (i.e., the mental representation for units smaller than the word),  (e) the relationship between reading and spelling processes. In addition to my work with adult speakers, a strong component of my research programme relates to the acquisition of reading and spelling and on the cognitive deficits responsible for developmental dyslexia.

The greatest originality and strength of my research programme is that it seeks to answer some fundamental questions about language processing by gathering complementary evidence from the study of different populations (brain-damaged patients, healthy adults, and children), using different methodologies (e.g., reaction time studies, corpus analysis, ERPs, fMRI, tDCS) and involving different languages (mostly English, Welsh, and French).

In the past few year, my work has focused more particularly on the interactions between language systems in bilingualism (mostly Welsh-English), on the neural representation of multiple languages, and on second language learning. As part of this research, I have created theoretically motivated protocols for the assessment and rehabilitation of language disorders in Welsh-English bilingual adults with brain-damage. Thanks to an ongoing collaboration with the Speech and Language Therapy services of BCUHB, I am expanding the impact of this work to benefit clinicians nationally and internationally.

 

Dr Kami Koldewyn, Reader in Psychology k.koldewyn@bangor.ac.uk

Enillodd Kami radd BA ddeuol mewn Cerddoriaeth ac Athroniaeth yng Ngholeg Pomona yng Nghaliffornia. Ar ôl sawl blwyddyn yn dysgu plant a phobl ifanc ag anhwylderau niwroddatblygiadol, dychwelodd i ysgol graddedigion a chwblhau PhD mewn Niwrowyddoniaeth ym Mhrifysgol California, Davis. Yna treuliodd bedair blynedd fel ymchwilydd ôl-ddoethurol yn Sefydliad Technoleg Massachusetts, yn gweithio gyda Nancy Kanwisher. Ymunodd â'r gyfadran ym Mangor yn 2013.
Mae Kami yn Ddarllenydd yn yr Ysgol Gwyddorau Dynol ac Ymddygiadol ac yn rhan o'r grŵp ymchwil Niwrowyddoniaeth Gymdeithasol yn yr ysgol.
Mae ei diddordebau ymchwil yn cynnwys: Datblygu canfyddiad cymdeithasol a gwybyddiaeth gymdeithasol ar draws y rhychwant oes, Anhwylder Sbectrwm Awtistiaeth ac anhwylderau niwroddatblygiadol eraill sy'n effeithio ar ganfyddiad cymdeithasol a gwybyddiaeth, a seiliau ymennydd canfyddiad cymdeithasol a gwybyddiaeth gymdeithasol.

 

Dr David Carey, Reader in Psychology d.carey@bangor.ac.uk

 

Mae gan Dr Carey ddiddordeb mewn arbenigo yn hemisffer chwith a dde yr ymennydd ar gyfer iaith, darllen a phrosesu wynebau, ac a yw darllenwyr â dyslecsia datblygiadol yn dangos anomaleddau yn hyn o beth, gyda goblygiadau swyddogaethol ar gyfer gallu darllen. Ar hyn o bryd mae Dr Carey yn Ddarllenydd yn yr Ysgol Gwyddorau Dynol ac Ymddygiadol ac mae'n derbyn ceisiadau gan fyfyrwyr PhD.

 

 

 

 

 

Prof Enlli Thomas, Professor in Education, Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor enlli.thomas@bangor.ac.uk

Enlli Thomas is Director of Research and Impact at the School of Education and Human Development. Her main research interests and expertise span psycholinguistic approaches to the study of bilingual language acquisition, including children’s acquisition of complex structures under conditions of minimal language input, bilingual assessment, and education approaches to language transmission, acquisition and use. She has conducted research and published widely in many areas of language study, including papers on aspects of bilingual acquisition, including impact factors influencing successful L1-L2 acquisition; bilingual transfer; bilingual assessment; bilingual literacy; Executive Function and bilingualism,; socio-economic status and language abilities; and factors influencing language use.  She gives regular invited lectures to practitioners and child-care workers both in the education and in the mental health sector on topics relating to language development and bilingualism, and had made regular appearances on tv and radio as an expert informant.

She graduated with a degree in Psychology from Bangor University in 1996 and went on to receive a PhD in Psychology in 2001, which looked at Welsh-speaking children’s acquisition of grammatical gender in Welsh. After completing her PhD, she remained at Bangor to work as a post-doctoral researcher on an ESRC-funded study looking at Welsh-speaking children’s acquisition of mutation, gender, and grammatical categories. During her subsequent years working as a Teaching Associate in the School of Psychology, she was involved as a co-author on a number of successful large-scale research grants, looking at language transmission practices in the home (Welsh Language Board), cognitive effects of bilingualism across the lifespan (ESRC), developing Welsh language assessment tools (Welsh Assembly Government), neuropsychological assessment of bilingual Welsh-English speakers (North Wales Research Committee & West Wales NHS Trust Research and Development Grants Awarding Committee) and bilingualism and dementia (North Wales Research Committee).

Since moving to the School of Education in 2007, she has continued to collaborate on a number of studies including a large-scale grant looking at the impact of bilingualism on patients with Altzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease (ESRC), and she was a core member of the Executive of the ESRC Centre for Research on Education in Theory and Practice. At the same time, she has been actively applying her expertise in the education context. Since joining the School of Education, she has led on a number of research projects, including those looking at developing children’s social use of Welsh both within and outside the classroom (Hunaniaith and Welsh Language Board), those exploring the opportunities afforded to L2 children to use Welsh within the classroom (Welsh Government), developing Welsh-language adaptations of standardised measures of linguistic and non-linguistic measures widely used in schools (GL Assessment), evaluating the Premier League Reading Stars Cymru reading programme (National Literacy Trust), and evaluating a family-based programme - The Family Learning Signature - in helping education authorities to improve attainment, attendance and behaviour, particularly with hard to reach families and disengaged learners (Widening Access Funds). She recently co-led on a project funded by the Gwynedd and Anglesey Post-16 Consortia to evaluate the various types of ‘bilingual’ teaching employed across the region and to develop new software to equip institutions to track the use of Welsh and English across the curriculum annually as part of their language planning strategy. The software is now used in all institutions in Gwynedd and Anglesey which provide for post-16 pupils.  She is recently co-author of a large-scale ESRC grant (£1.8 million), which is a multi-institution project to develop the first mass corpus to capture and inform the past, present and future use of the Welsh language. She will co-lead on the development and evaluation of a dedicated resource for teachers and learners of Welsh that will result from Corpus as part of the research.

She is also the author and co-author of a number of articles and book chapters, and co-author of a standardized tool for measuring children’s receptive vocabulary in Welsh. She recently co-edited a volume entitled “Advances in the Study of Bilingualism”.

Simone Calabrich, sml19pvv@bangor.ac.uk

Mae Simone Calabrich yn fyfyrwraig PhD yn yr Ysgol Seicoleg ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Ar hyn o bryd mae hi'n ymchwilio i'r gwahanol brosesau sy'n sail i gaffael cysylltiadau gweledol-ffonolegol newydd mewn unigolion â dyslecsia datblygiadol a darllenwyr nodweddiadol. Mae hi hefyd yn gweithio fel dadansoddwr data ar gyfer y project Cyfarwyddyd Llythrennedd ac Iaith o Bell. Mae gan Simone radd MSc mewn Ieithyddiaeth Glinigol a ddyfarnwyd ar y cyd gan Brifysgolion Groningen, Dwyrain y Ffindir, a Potsdam, ac MA mewn Ieithyddiaeth Gymhwysol o Goleg y Brenin Llundain. Mae ganddi brofiad gydag ymchwil olrhain llygaid - yn y labordy a thros gwe-gamera - yn ogystal ag olrhain symudiadau cyrchwr cyfrifiadurol ac electroenceffalograffi (posibiliadau cysylltiedig â digwyddiadau).

 

Catrin Leah Hadden, sepae5@bangor.ac.uk

Cwblhaodd Ms Catrin Leah Hadden ei BSc mewn Seicoleg a’i gradd MSc mewn Ymchwil Seicolegol ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Ar hyn o bryd, mae'n ymgeisydd doethuriaeth ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Mae ei thraethawd ymchwil yn canolbwyntio ar ddatblygiad llythrennedd cynnar ymhlith dysgwyr dwyieithog Cymraeg-Saesneg o gamau cynharaf dysgu darllen a sillafu, ac ar ganfyddiad cynnar y posibilrwydd o anhwylderau darllen ymhlith dysgwyr dwyieithog. Ers dwy flynedd bu Ms Hadden yn Arweinydd Project gwirfoddol ar y rhaglen ymyrraeth 'Llamu i Lythrennedd' sy'n cael ei rhedeg gan y Ganolfan Dyslecsia.

Marie Lallier, BCBL Spain

Gwendoline Mahe, CNRS Lille