Professor of Cognitive and Clinical Neuropsychology.

Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center & Department of Learning Disabilities

Head of Arabic M.A Clinical program in Learning Disabilities

University of Haifa

Haifa 31905, Israel

Email: raphiq@psy.haifa.ac.il

Bio

I am a senior researcher at the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at University of Haifa, where I am an Associate Professor of Neuropsychology. My main research interests are in psycholinguistics and neuropsychology. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, my work focuses on the cognitive and neurocognitive underpinnings of visual word perception, reading processes, speech perception and production. Specifically, the combination of three major levels: brain, cognition and behavior are a key element of my approach to the study of typical and atypical development of language abilities. In my first line of research I focus on bilingualism and "diglossia" in Arabic (the existence of two forms of Arabic Language-Spoken Arabic (SA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) – are considered important works in the field. In my second line of research, I focused on the neuropsychological perspective and studied the hemispheric specialization as it relates to language and reading. Specifically, I have been investigating the relationship between a language experience, such as reading a particular language with particular orthographic characteristics, and the genetic functional architecture of language processes in the cerebral hemispheres of the brain. In collaboration with colleagues, I examined the effects of Arabic and Hebrew orthographies on hemispheric involvement in lateralized language tasks in native Arabic, Hebrew, and English speakers. We examined whether the Arabic orthography prevents the involvement of the right hemisphere (RH) in letter identification, compared to English and Hebrew. In addition, we explored the relationship between the morphological structure of a language and the performance asymmetries of native speakers on a lateralized lexical decision task in which the morphological structure of both words and nonwords was systematically manipulated. These lines of research are unique especially since cognition and neuroscience are moving closer together in the last years. Simultaneously, I became interested in the relationship between learned behaviors and genetic functional architecture in the area of speech perception and production. I carried out with colleagues case studies of bilingual aphasic patients who showed differential performance patterns in 1^st and 2^nd languages. In related issues, we asked how foreign languages processing affects measure of ego permeability do. In recent years I did collect together with different colleagues event-related potentials (ERPs) data during reading different types of Arabic orthographies (connected and unconnected) in order to understand the complexity of Arabic orthography and how this complexity of the script can affect reading text and comprehension performance . In addition, we aim to examine the lexical facet of the diglossic situation in Arabic.

In my clinical research, I was involved in three projects. In the first project I have joined a team to develop in Arabic a comprehensive battery of tests (see Diagnostic Batteries -ELUL ) to identify reading abilities and difficulties in a classroom setting. This test was the first nationally standardized classroom based screening test to be used throughout Israel from grades 1-11. In the second project, I joined another team on developing norms for a battery of individual diagnostic tests based on a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach. The battery called "Logat Elk'eraa" includes decoding, comprehension, fluency, and various verbal and non-verbal skills. In the third project, I joined a team of clinical psychologists from Department of Psychology to construct norms for the Arabic version of the Wechsler Intelligence Tests for Children (WISC-IVarb). These Three batteries are the first nationally standardized tests for Arab children ever built in Israel.

An important research I conducted with colleagues from Department of Psychology and researchers from the "National Institute for Testing and Evaluation" (MALO) was aimed to explore differences in reading rate of Hebrew and Arabic texts used in the "Psychometric Entrance Test" (PET). This research has implications for the validity and reliability of PET in Arabic and influence strongly rebuilding it.