Dorothy Bishop on language disorders

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2015

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Dorothy Bishop is a world-leading expert in childhood language disorders. Since the 1970s, she has been instrumental in bringing to light a little-known language disorder that may affect around two children per class starting primary school. 'Specific Language Impairment', or SLI, was originally deemed to be the fault of lazy parents who didn't talk to their children. But through her pioneering studies on twins, Dorothy found a genetic link behind this disorder, helping to overturn these widespread misconceptions. Dorothy talks to Jim Al-Khalili about how families react when they discover there's a genetic basis to their problems, and why this language impairment isn't as well known as other conditions, like autism and dyslexia. A critic of pseudoscience and media misreporting, Dorothy discusses her experiences of speaking out against folk psychology and bad science journalism. Producer: Michelle Martin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.
0:03.6	First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:06.3	I'm Jim Alleili and my mission is to interview
0:09.2	the most fascinating and important scientists alive today and to find out what makes them tick.
0:15.0	Why does some children find language difficult?
0:19.0	That's the question that's driven my guest today throughout her career.
0:23.0	Dorothy Bishop is professor of developmental neuropsychology at the University of Oxford.
0:28.0	Since the 1970s, she's almost single-handedly uncovered and investigated a previously hidden form of language impairment
0:35.0	that may affect up to 7% of children.
0:38.0	Originally deemed to be the fault of lazy parents who don't spend enough time talking to their kids, she's worked tirelessly
0:45.4	to overturn that misconception and to understand the true underlying causes.
0:50.6	Through her website Bishop blog, which has the strapline rambling on academic related matters,
0:56.0	Dorothy is an outspoken critic of folk psychology, media misreporting and flawed scientific studies. Her fans value her finely tuned radar
1:06.5	for hype and she's extremely well respected among her peers for both her vast
1:10.7	portfolio of highly cited research papers and the critical expert opinions
1:15.4	she airs online.
1:17.7	Colleagues and collaborators tell me she is pioneering, modest and brave. Others say that if she decided to change career she should
1:25.3	consider running the country. Dorothy Bishop, welcome to the life scientific.
1:29.4	Thank you very much Jim but I'm certainly not going to be running the country.
1:33.0	Well, okay, it is too late for you to run for election this time around.
1:37.8	So let's focus on your current academic career.
1:40.6	As we've just heard, through your research research you've been instrumental in helping
	...

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