Molly Losh

Molly Losh serves as the Jo Ann G. and Peter F. Dolle Professor of Learning Disabilities in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Associate Dean for Research at Northwestern University's School of Communication, where she directs the Neurodevelopmental Diversity Lab.

Her educational background includes:

• PhD in Developmental Psychology from UC Berkeley
• BA in Psychology from San Diego State University

Dr. Losh's research centers on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related neurodevelopmental conditions, with emphasis on language/communication impairments spanning diagnostic boundaries. Her lab identifies cognitive mechanisms underlying social-communicative differences in autism, bridging observable behaviors and biological underpinnings to advance understanding of etiology. This work employs multi-method approaches including eye-tracking, acoustic analysis, and computational modeling.

Analysis of her recent publications (2023-2025) reveals intensifying focus on computational/AI methods for speech analysis, particularly in prosody, pragmatic language, and narrative ability. A consistent theme is examination of the broad autism phenotype in first-degree relatives and FMR1 gene contributions in Fragile X syndrome, with growing cross-cultural and cross-linguistic dimensions.

Dr. Losh currently leads three major NIH-funded projects:

• R01MH091131 (2019-2024): Family-genetic study of autism and Fragile X syndrome examining FMR1 gene roles
• R01DC010191 (2016-2021): Identification of linguistic markers for autism genetic liability
• R03DC018644 (2020-2022): Computational analysis of prosody in ASD using machine learning

Her Neurodevelopmental Diversity Lab conducts integrated research on visual attention, audio-motor synchronization, and pragmatic language through family studies, with active translation of findings to clinical assessment frameworks.