Welcome to Natalia Meir's Lab

Prof. Natalia Meir is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature and Linguistics at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, where she coordinates the Linguistics in Clinical Research Program. She is affiliated with the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University. Prof. Meir earned her PhD from Bar-Ilan University, focusing on language skills in bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder. During her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Haifa, she studied bilingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Prof. Meir leads a research lab dedicated to investigating language development and processing across the lifespan in bilingual and multilingual populations, with a special focus on individuals with ASD. The lab explores heritage language acquisition and maintenance, examining linguistic and cognitive factors shaping bilingual grammars in children and adults. Utilizing a range of methodologies, including EEG, eye-tracking, and behavioral assessments, the lab provides insights into bilingual language development. Prof. Meir’s research has been funded by grants from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), German-Israel Foundation (GIF), and the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF).

The lab collaborates with international research teams and actively contributes to public engagement on multilingualism. Prof. Meir currently serves as an Associate Editor for Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) and co-edited Methods for Assessing Multilingual Children: Disentangling Bilingualism from Specific Language Impairment (Multilingual Matters), a key publication from the European COST Action IS0804 biSLI network. She is a member of the Bilingualism Matters network and serves on the Multilingual and Multicultural Affairs Committee of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP).