The Adams-Sweeting Lecture series was created in honour of two of the University of Surrey’s most prestigious academics – Emeritus Professor of Physics, Alf Adams and Distinguished Chair of Space Engineering, Sir Martin Sweeting. The lecture sees experts, innovators and scientists deliver fascinating talks on pioneering developments in their area of expertise. Feed your intrigue, expand your mind and join us to learn about the innovations shaping the world.

For our next event, we are delighted to be joined by Usha Goswami, 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.

Recent insights from auditory neuroscience provide a new perspective on how the brain encodes speech. Using these recent insights, Professor Goswami will provide an overview of key factors underpinning individual differences in children’s development of language and phonology, providing a context for exploring atypical reading development (dyslexia). Children with dyslexia are relatively insensitive to acoustic cues related to speech rhythm patterns. This lack of rhythmic sensitivity is related to the atypical neural encoding of rhythm patterns in speech by the brain. Professor Goswami will discuss some research-based interventions that aim to ameliorate these rhythmic difficulties.