Speaker
Presentation in English
SANJA ŠIMLEŠA
UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB. CROATIA
Sanja Šimleša is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb, at the Department of Speech and Language Pathology. She obtained her PhD in 2013 from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, with a dissertation titled The Relationship between Executive Functions, Theory of Mind, and Language Comprehension in Preschool Children.
Her research focuses on early development, autism spectrum disorder, and child communication. She teaches at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels and is involved in teaching across five doctoral programs in Croatia. She served as Head of the Teaching and Clinical Center of the Faculty (2017–2022) and is currently involved in several scientific and professional projects. She is also the author and coordinator of lifelong learning programs, including training in developmental assessment and the promotion of children’s social communication.
She has published over 40 scientific and professional papers and has delivered around 50 presentations at national and international conferences, including several invited lectures. She has completed training and research visits at universities such as Yale, California, Washington, Valencia, and Karolinska Institutet.
She is the editor of the Croatian edition of the diagnostic protocol ADOS-2 and serves as editor of the journal Croatian Review of Rehabilitation Research.
She has received several awards, including the Best Young Researcher Award (Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences), Best Evaluated Teacher in the postgraduate specialist study “Early Intervention in Educational Rehabilitation” (Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences), the Award for the Promotion of Lifelong Learning (Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences), and most recently the “Ramiro Bujas” Award for an outstanding contribution to the social promotion of psychology (Croatian Psychological Association).
Early Development in Context: The Role of Home Learning Environment in Typical and Developmental Risk Populations
The home learning environment (HLE) represents a central context for early child development, particularly during periods of heightened neurodevelopmental plasticity. In recent decades, substantial changes in family structures, daily interaction patterns, and the growing presence of digital technologies have reshaped the conditions in which young children develop. These shifts call for updated, contextually grounded research on how contemporary HLE characteristics relate to developmental outcomes. This symposium brings together a series of studies conducted within a project examining the HLE of young children in Croatia and its associations with early communication and language development in both typically developing children and those with developmental difficulties.
The presented contributions will address key dimensions of HLE, including parental behaviors, organization of daily activities, material and digital resources, and family social networks. One line of research will explore differences in HLE characteristics between typically developing children and children at developmental risk. Another will examine how specific features of the HLE are associated with early language development. Additional contributions will focus on the role of the HLE in shaping the use and patterns of augmentative and alternative communication in children with developmental difficulties. Furthermore, one presentation will extend the discussion to children with motor impairments, offering a complementary perspective on developmental risk beyond the primary project scope.
The symposium will provide novel insights into the socio-cultural specificities of HLE in Croatia and highlight the importance of understanding early development as a dynamic interplay between children and their everyday environments.
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