Katharina’s Research Background
Katharina I. Boser, Ph.D.
Individual Differences in Learning (IDL)
and Founder of Boser Education Technology Consulting
Katharina I. Boser received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University in 1997. She then worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at The University of Maryland, Baltimore until 2000. She joined the Cognitive Neurology, Neuropsychology group as a research associated in the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2001, where her research focused her research on autism, language and cognition. She is now the Chair of the Innovative Technology for Autism–ITA Committeeat Autism Speaks and works on networking pioneers in this continually emerging field of designers, engineers, educators, scientists and psychologists.
Overview
My primary research interests lie in understanding the neuropsychological and neurodevelopmental substrates of language processing in normal and abnormal development, particularly in autism and other developmental disabilities. I am interested in the study of the cognitive requirements for early single word learning from perceptual categorization to semantic or conceptual knowledge and how this early word knowledge is later transformed into longer strings of sentences and ultimately connected discourse. My research projects are aimed at understanding the complex relationships between different brain systems (attention, memory, visual processing, executive functions) and the language system by studying their impairment in brain disorders such as, aphasia, autism and ADHD. My goal has been to find corroborating behavioral evidence for neural substrates that are known to be involved in language and semantic impairments in certain developmental disorders, such as pathways that involve specific frontal lobe areas. This evidence may lead to specific cognitive interventions to improve everyday communication and language skills. For example, my research has shown that task changes such as more time to respond, less interference and cueing may reduce subjectsÕ poor regulation of attention, allowing them to perform in more typical ways. In addition, I have been studying the connection between cognitive flexibility as measured by working memory tasks involving executive function and the flexibility required in the language system. I have also studied the connection between attention and executive-type impairments in other domains such as visual processing, visual search and number processing.
Prior to working with children with developmental disabilities, I investigated language processing and acquisition issues in normally developing children (German first language acquisition) as well as the rehabilitation of language in aphasia using computer technology.
Selected Publications
Boser K, Weinrich M: Functional categories in agrammatic production: Evidence for access to tense projections. Brain and Language 1998; 65(1): 207-210.
Weinrich M, Boser K, McCall D: Representation of linguistic rules in the brain: Evidence from training an aphasic patient to produce past tense verb morphology. Brain and Language 1999; 70(1): 144-58.
Boser K, Weinrich M, McCall D: Maintenance of oral production in agrammatic aphasia: Verb tense morphology training. Journal of Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair 2000; 14(2): 105-18.
Boser K, Higgins S, Fetherston A, Preissler MA, Gordon B: Semantic fields in low-functioning autism. Autism and Developmental Disorders 2002, vol. 32(6) 563-82.
Presentations
Boser K, Smrcka V, Wheelan M, Fitzgerald A, Hamdy R, Gordon B: ÒFamiliarityÓ and interference in learning single word-to-picture discrimination in low functioning autism. Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Fransisco, CA, 2002.
Boser K, Higgins S, Kiger R, O’Grady J, Gordon B: Prototypicality effects and color categories in non-verbal individuals with autism. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, San Diego, CA, 2001.
Boser K, Smrcka V, Stark S, Haarmann H, Gordon B: Use of context in working memory in autism. International Meeting for Autism Research, Orlando, Fl, 2002.
Boser K, Gordon B: Exact number without exact language in a child with autism. American Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA, 2003.
Boser K: Language impairments in autism correlate with impairments in working memory for temporally ordered visual and auditory information, 4th Science Of Aphasia Conference: Cross-Disciplinary Aspects, Trieste (Italy), August 22-27, 2003
Boser K, Boatman D, Gordon B: Hemispheric asymmetries in hierarchical visual processing in autism. Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA, 2003
Boser K, Haarmann H, Gordon B: Semantic short‑term memory impairment in childhood autism. 44th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2003
Boser K: Proactive Interference in Subjects with Autism. Annual Meeting of the International Neurological Society, Baltimore, MD, February, 2004.
Boser K, Haarmann H, Knobel M: Poor Semantic Activation and Interference In Autism. International Meeting for Autism Research, Sacramento, CA, May, 2004.
Boser K, Knobel M: Poor Inhibition of Distracters In Pop-Out Counting: Evidence For Impaired Attention In Autism. International Meeting for Autism Research, Sacramento, CA, May, 2004.
found it on google. nice. ill come back to visit.