Joana Acha Morcillo (Co-IP)
Associate Professor
Web addresses
Academic data
<ul><li>Degree in Psychology. University of Deusto (2002). </li>
<li>Postgraduate in Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology (2003-2004). </li>
<li>Phd. In Cognitive Neuroscience. University of Valencia (2009).</li></ul>
CV summary
Joana Acha is psychologist, expert on cognitive neuroscience and child development. She obtained the Extraordinary Doctorate Award and the SEPEX Research Award in 2009. She is currently associate professor and researcher in child cognitive development at the Department of Basic Psychological Processes and their Development at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. He has collaborated with various laboratories investigating the mechanisms involved in language and reading in adults (Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst) and in bilingual and monolingual children with and without learning difficulties (La Mente Bilingüe Laboratory, UPV /EHU; Basque Center of Cognition Brain and Language). She is an ANEP project reviewer since 2006 and member of the Frontiers in Language Sciences editorial review team since 2011.
Research lines
Her current line of research is the study of the mechanisms involved in the development of language and reading with three aims: 1) detect the influence of cognitive mechanisms of early development such as attention or executive functions in the developmental trajectory of language and reading and related disorders such as SLI or dyslexia, 2) compare different learning methods -handwriting, repetition, visual recognition- to optimize the process of linguistic and reading development, 3) identify those variables of the family context that can promote or hinder such development.
