We expect 100% attendance but if there are any issues, please send us an email in advance of the class to let us know. Students need to read the literature thoroughly to enable a useful discussion.

Requirement to pass the unit

A passing grade is contingent on completion and submission of all assessments. Failure to submit any assessments [Reading literature report, Presentation of RQ, Language Literature Report] will automatically result in a fail grade and any subsequent pieces of work will not be assessed.

Late Penalties

Late submission of an assignment will attract a penalty of 10% of the maximum mark for every day that the assignment is late (including weekend days). For example, if the assignment is worth 40 marks and your assignment is submitted 2 days late, a penalty of 2x10%x40 = 8 marks will be applied and subtracted from the awarded mark for the assignment. Work submitted more than 7 days after the submission deadline will not be marked and will receive a mark of 0. Please note that it is the student’s responsibility to notify the University of a disruption to their studies and that requests for extensions for assignments must be made via the University’s Ask MQ System (as outlined in the Disruption to Studies Policy).

Final Grade

Your final grade is determined by your performance in meeting the learning outcomes for the unit. The Standard Numerical Grade (SNG) reflects the extent to which your performance matches the grade descriptors, as outlined in the Macquarie University Grading Policy. Please note that your final mark may be scaled and therefore may not necessarily be a raw sum of the marks received for the individual assessment tasks.

For each Lecture, references to the literature (typically up to three papers and/ or chapters) will be provided at least two weeks in advance.

This unit forms part of a four-unit core sequence covering a range of foundational and cutting-edge research topics in cognitive science, with an emphasis on active research programs at MQ. This team-taught unit is made up of a selection of three topic modules, led by experts specialising in these fields. The first two modules focus on reading, covering topics such as development, remediation and learning to read in different languages. The first module will also give a brief introduction to the novel discipline of learning to code. The last module focusses on acquired spoken language problems and its remediation. Throughout all units we discuss how cognitive scientists approach research questions and design experiments in these domains.