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Contact information


kate.watkins@psy.ox.ac.uk


+44 (0)1865 271314


ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2621-482X


she/her

Research groups

Kate Watkins

MA PhD

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

  • Tutorial Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford
  • Associate Head for People and Culture

Neural basis of speech and language

Research Summary

I am interested in how the brain communicates using speech and language and what is different about the minds and brains of people who have difficulty with speech or language or both 

My general research interests are in the area of cognitive neuroscience.  Specifically, I am interested in the brain processes underlying speech and language and brain development. This is studied by working with populations of children and adults with developmental disorders of speech and language, e.g. stuttering, developmental language disorder, DLD.  We use a number of different methods in the laboratory including neuropsychological testing, brain imaging and brain stimulation.  

Research areas

Speech Perception

Speech Production

Developmental Stuttering (Stammering)

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; previously SLI) 


Biography

I trained in neuropsychology at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.  My doctoral research used neuropsychology and structural image analysis to study the KE family, the affected members of which have a mutation in the gene FOXP2 and a severe motor speech disorder.  My post-doctoral training was at the Montreal Neurological Institute, where I used TMS to study the role of the motor cortex in speech perception.  I have been in Oxford at the FMRIB Centre since 2003 and I was appointed as a University Lecturer in Experimental Psychology in 2006.

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications