Keeping Time Together: Sensorimotor Timing, Social Synchrony, and their Role in Language and Reading Development

About the Project

Human communication relies on the ability to coordinate actions in time with others. This PhD investigates how sensorimotor timing and interpersonal synchrony relate to phonological awareness and reading ability across development. The project examines how children and adults synchronise with auditory, visual, and socially meaningful cues, and whether key timing components such as prediction, synchronisation, and adaptation, support literacy skills. A central aim is to understand how movement-based learning experiences can scaffold language development in childhood. Rhythmic movement, dance, and coordinated action are thought to strengthen temporal prediction and sensitivity to speech rhythms, processes fundamental to phonological awareness and reading acquisition. The research will therefore test whether timing abilities provide a mechanistic link between bodily coordination and literacy development. Experimental studies will combine laboratory timing paradigms with ecologically valid movement activities, including rhythm training, coordinated movement games, and potentially dance-based educational interventions.

Across child and adult populations, the project will identify which aspects of timing are most strongly associated with reading ability and whether observed differences reflect stable deficits or variations in learning and adaptation. By integrating movement science, developmental psychology, and education, the research advances theoretical models of dyslexia while positioning movement-based educational approaches as scalable tools to support learning, wellbeing, and social engagement.

Ultimately, this PhD aims to establish sensorimotor timing as a foundational mechanism linking movement, language, and literacy development.