Maria Cristina Caselli is the coordinator of the LaCAM (Language and Communication across Modalities Laboratory) at the ISTC (Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology). Her research focuses on early language development and the relationship between communication and non-verbal cognition, in typical and atypical populations (i.e. deaf children, children with Down syndrome, children with Specific Language Impairment). Special attention is devoted to the analysis of similarities and differences in the acquisition of spoken and signed language. She is also involved in research projects on the link between action, gesture and spoken language carried out, in collaboration with the Neuroscience Department of the University of Parma. Recently she has started to analyze the effect of cochlear implantation on vocal language skills of deaf children, taking into account the role of neural plasticity and of previous auditory experiences and linguistic (spoken or spoken & signed) experiences. Maria Cristina is the Italian referent of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories, an instrument developed in more than 40 different languages and widely used for the assessment of young children’s emerging language and communication skills, as well as for the early identification of children at risk for language and communication delay and/or disorder. She has established profitable collaborations with colleagues from national and international Universities, Research Centres and with child neuropsychiatric, psychologists and rehabilitation therapists. She is the author or co-author of 9 books and more than 150 national and international publications in several fields: psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, and neuropsychology.