Elena Florit

Post-doc research fellow

 

Education
2010: PhD in Developmental Psychology (Mention of Doctor Europaeus), University of Padova, Doctoral dissertation: "Listening Text Comprehension in Preschoolers: Concurrent and Longitudinal Contribution of Cognitive and Linguistic Component Skills"
2005: Degree in Developmental Psychology, University of Padova

Academic experience
2009 (4 months): Visiting Scholar at the Department of Psychology Speech, Lancaster University, (UK)

Grants
2008: Study Visit Grant of the EPS (Experimental Psychology Society) undertaken at the Department of Psychology (Lancaster University) with dr. Kate Cain "The Simple View of Reading in transparent and non transparent orthographies"
2009- present: Research Fellow on the acquisition of Italian as a second language in children form immigrant families.

Main research interests
- Language and cognitive abilities in typically developing school and preschool children
- Listening comprehension and related language and cognitive abilities in preschool-children
- Decoding and reading comprehension in children with typical development
- Second language acquisition in immigrant children

Publications

Articles in international journals

Florit, E., Roch, M., & Levorato, M.C. (under review). The Relationship Between Listening Comprehension of Text and Sentences in Preschoolers: Specific or Mediated by Lower- and Higher-Level Components? Applied Psycholinguistics.

Levorato, M.C., Roch, M., & Florit, E. (in press). Listening Text Comprehension of Explicit and Implicit Information in Preschoolers: The Role of Verbal and Inferential Skills. Discourse Processes.

Roch, M., Florit, E. & Levorato, M.C. (in press). A follow-up study on reading comprehension in Down syndrome: The role of reading skills and listening comprehension. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders.

Levorato, M.C., Roch, M.C., & Florit, E. (in press). The role of verbal memory in reading text comprehension of individuals with Down syndrome. American Journal of Intellectual Disabilities.

Florit, E., Roch, M, Altoè, G, & Levorato, M.C. (2009). Listening comprehension in preschoolers: The role of memory. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27 (4), 935-951.

Articles in national journals

Florit, E., Levorato, M.C. & Roch, M. (2008) Verba volant, scripta manent. Cambiamenti evolutivi nella comprensione del testo scritto e orale/Verba volant, scripta manent. Developmental changes in reading and listening text comprehension. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 3, 641-662

Proceedings

Florit, E., Levorato, M.C. & Roch, M. (2009). Individual differences in preschoolers’ text comprehension: contributions of verbal abilities, short-term and working memory. In Jane Chandlee, Michelle Franchini, Sandy Lord, and Marion Rheiner (Eds.), on-line supplement to the Proceedings of the 33rd Boston University Conference on Language Development