Lottie Gasparini
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lottiegasp.bsky.social
Lottie Gasparini
@lottiegasp.bsky.social
140 followers 130 following 41 posts
PhD student in language acquisition & #DevLangDis | anarchist, animal liberationist, aspiring anti-racist accomplice 🏳️‍🌈🇵🇸 Wurundjeri country. she/her

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/lgasparini
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lottiegasp.bsky.social
⭐ New paper published in Psychiatry Research ⭐

🧬 Available genetic measures can’t yet help us identify individuals with low language at 11 years

#DevLangDis #DLD #genetics #language
doi.org/10.1016/j.ps... 1/n
Available genetic measures can’t help us identify individuals with low language at 11 years. 1. What this research is about. About 1 in 10 children has a language disorder. It’s hard to identify these children when they are young. This makes it hard to give them the support they need. Picture of a parent looking at a child with a magnifying glass. 2. What the researchers did. We calculated a measure that represents part of an individual’s genetic risk of having lower language skills. We combined this genetic measure with parent survey questions to see how well they predicted individuals’ language at 11 years. Picture of a strand of DNA plus a parent holding a child and a survey. 3. What the researchers found. We repeated the results across 2 groups. In both groups, the survey questions could predict about three quarters of children with low language at 11 years. See the “Survey only” bars in the graph. A graph shows that "Survey only" had 86% and 74% accuracy. Our genetic measures did not improve how well we could predict individuals’ later language very much. The numbers for “Survey and genetics” are not that much higher than the dark bars. A graph shows that "Survey and genetics" had 87% and 78% accuracy. 4. What this means. Genetics can’t help yet with identifying most young children with language disorders. The best ways are still to ask parents questions, or for a clinician to observe the child. Learn more here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116826 or email: gasparini.lorett@gmail.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:50 AM
lottiegasp.bsky.social
Something went wrong with the screenshot of my email 😵‍💫 here is the full email. You can copy and paste it from the ALT-text
Dear Mr Khalil and Ms Ratnam, I am a resident of Wills. I am writing today after having just written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong asking them to meet immediately with Dr Mohammed Mustafa following his return to Australia from Gaza. Whoever becomes my next Wills MP, I urge you to please show your support and urge Mr Albanese and Ms Wong to meet with Dr Mustafa. I fully support Dr Mustafa's goal to build a children's hospital in Gaza. As someone who works as a researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital, improving the lives of children is the goal of my own career. It would be remiss to ignore the suffering and deaths of thousands of Palestinian children. Please urge the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to meet with Dr Mustafa as soon as possible and ask them to listen to him about how Australia can support Palestinians. Yours sincerely, Loretta Gasparini.
May 6, 2025 at 12:53 AM
lottiegasp.bsky.social
This is what I wrote to my local MP. I adapted it when writing to the PM and FM asking them to meet with Dr Mustafa 3/6
Email with subject: Urge Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to meet with Dr Mohammed Mustafa Email body: Dear Mr Khalil and Ms Ratnam, I am a resident of Wills. I am writing today after having just written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong asking them to meet immediately with Dr Mohammed Mustafa following his return to Australia from Gaza. Whoever becomes my next Wills MP, I urge you to please show your support and urge Mr Albanese and Ms Wong to meet with Dr Mustafa. I fully support Dr Mustafa's goal to build a children's hospital in Gaza. As someone who works as a researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital, improving the lives of children is the goal of my own career. It would be remiss to ignore the suffering and deaths of thousands of Palestinian children. Please urge the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to meet with Dr Mustafa as soon as possible and ask them to listen to him about how Australia can support Palestinians. Yours sincerely, Loretta Gasparini.
May 6, 2025 at 12:47 AM
lottiegasp.bsky.social
⭐️ New speech app to make research easier for families⭐️
The MCRI Translation Centre for Speech Disorders is looking at an app testing #speech and #language in 4-year-old children

⬇️See flyer for eligibility and details.
Interested? Register here: redcap.link/pv0sdgzi
New speech app to make research easier for families Recruiting study participants now! To check children’s speech, families often need to visit a clinic. We made an App for parents to do the same checks at home. This will save everyone time and money and let us help more young children. Do you have a 4-year-old child? Can you and your child give 20 minutes to do the speech tasks at home? You’ll then tell us in a survey how to make the app better. What is this study? We made an app parents can use to test speech in the home instead of in the clinic. The activities include your child describing pictures and repeating sounds. The App makes a sound recording and sends it to our team to analyse. This pilot study will see how well these tools work at home without a researcher present. Who can take part? We are looking for children aged 4 years (born July 2020-March 2021) and one of their parents, who: Speak English at home, Live in Victoria, Australia, Are available in February 2025. What’s involved? You will do the speech tasks with your child, at home. We’ll give you a link to open on your smartphone and you’ll help your child do the tasks. We may ask that a researcher will be present on a video call (e.g. Zoom) to see how the tasks go. You will also complete some surveys about you and your child, and your experience doing the tasks. The whole session will take about 10 to 20 minutes of you and your child’s time, and about an extra 10 to 20 minutes of your time. How to register: Visit here: https://redcap.link/pv0sdgzi Or scan the QR Code Further queries If you have any queries, please contact us at: loretta.gasparini@mcri.edu.au
February 11, 2025 at 1:19 AM
lottiegasp.bsky.social
And our second study that replicated these results: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 8/13
Pie charts showing the percentage of children that the survey correctly identified. In the first study, the survey correctly identified 75% of children with a low language score and 81% of children with a high language score at 11 years. In the second study, the survey correctly identified 78% of children with a low language score and 71% of children with a high language score at 11 to 12 years. Learn more here: https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.13086 or email: gasparini.lorett@gmail.com
January 14, 2025 at 5:36 AM
lottiegasp.bsky.social
The guidelines include advice on how to add pictures to research summaries and how to create a visual abstract. See this visual abstract of one of my studies, which follows the template we provide 5/7
One-minute survey predicts 70% of children who will have low language in late childhood. Pie charts showing the percentage of children that the survey correctly identified. In the first study, the survey correctly identified 75% of children with a low language score and 81% of children with a high language score at 11 years. In the second study, the survey correctly identified 78% of children with a low language score and 71% of children with a high language score at 11 to 12 years. Learn more here: https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.13086 or email: gasparini.lorett@gmail.com
December 4, 2024 at 2:01 AM