Danielle Admiraal

Language is strongly engrained in societies; we all use both verbal and/or written expressions on a daily basis. Due to the genetic contributions to these traits, differences in language ability can arise across individuals. Subtle changes can result in occasional minor grammar mistakes or having some difficulty in finding the right word, whereas more notable differences are experienced by individuals diagnosed with developmental language disorder (DLD) or dyslexia. These differences in language ability not only influence communication itself, but also shape how individuals experience and engage with the social world around them. Social interactions, in turn, have a strong impact on social well-being and mental health. As language is one of the tools used for our social interaction, these social interactive outcomes are (in)directly affected by one’s communicative ability. 

I am a PhD student in the Language and Genetics department, supervised by Prof. Dr. Simon E. Fisher and Dr. Else Eising. In my research, I aim to further explore the underlying common genetics contributing to language, and their connection to social interaction. In my current projects, I focus on various language-based traits, such as dyslexia, developmental language disorder, and multilingualism. I am also actively involved within the GenLang Consortium, where I lead the genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analyses on language comprehension traits (https://www.genlang.org/).