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Biography:

Fataneh Farnia, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre/Institute and the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Toronto has more than a decade of experience conducting research in the development of first and second language and literacy in school-aged children. Dr. Farnia’s research interests range from examining the contribution of cognitive and social factors to the acquisition of first and second language to identification of early childhood risk factors of later language and literacy development to factors that may influence adolescent’s literacy and academic achievement. In particular, her research interests lie in the risk factors and experiences that may relate to the poor language, literacy and reading skills development, poor educational outcomes, and socioemotional problems in immigrant children and adolescents with limited English proficiency. Farnia also has a special interest in longitudinal investigation of the association between cognitive and language problems and social and mental well-being of children and adolescents. The majority of her research effort to date reflects these cross-disciplinary interests.
Recently in collaboration with other researchers from Ontario universities and Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) she has been awarded two grants (CIHR and Provincial Center of Excellence at CHEO) to investigate the relationship between language and psychiatric disorders in adolescents in both clinical population and in Ontario secondary schools . Farnia is also collaborating in a CLLRNet funded systematic review project. In this project, a collaboration with CCL, the investigators will carry out a meta-analysis of existing literature to examine “How early can risk factors for language and literacy development be identified?”