Helen Neville

Helen Neville is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. She also holds positions with the Institute of Neuroscience, the Brain Development Lab, and the Sackler Institute for Human Brain Development, all at the University of Oregon. In addition, she serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. She studies the biological constraints and the role of input from the environment in the development of the human brain. Specifically, her research compares cerebral organization in hearing and non-hearing adults. She also studies the changes in functional cerebral organization that occur in infants and children as they develop.

Critical Periods in the Development of Children's Brains

ERP and fMRI results of visual, auditory and language processing suggest that different neural systems vary considerably in the degree to which they are modified by early experience. Within vision, early auditory deprivation has most marked effects on the organization of systems important in processing motion information. Within the visual and auditory systems sensory deprivation has more effects on the representation of the peripheral than of the central fields. In addition, different subsystems within language display varying degrees of modifiability by experience.

Parallel studies of normal infants, children, and adults and studies of those with abnormal development provide further evidence for the roles of genetic factors and experience in human neurobehavioral development. The results of these different types of experiments provide evidence that some systems within the human brain retain the ability to change, adapt, and learn throughout life, while other aspects of human neural and behavioral development display multiple and specific critical periods.