File photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis / The Roanoke Times

For 45 years Craig and Sharon Ramey have studied how children learn and develop, and what happens when they don’t thrive for a variety of reasons including illness, and socioeconomic factors.

In the process, they have developed a scientific understanding of how and when learning takes place. For instance, they discovered years ago that children begin to learn from infants and that process of learning influences their ability to read years later.

The husband and wife team have also taken their findings and offered scientific approaches to improving and maximizing children’s development potential.

On Thursday, the duo will be speaking in Roanoke about their work and their vision for making large-scale, community wide differences in the development of children.

“What we really think Roanoke has the potential to do is to become a model for how to bring science practice and parenting into a unified whole,” said Craig Ramey.

Thursday’s talk is the first in 2012/2013 Distinguished Scholars Series of lectures at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. The Rameys joined the institute faculty in January 2011.

And the couple said they are determined to make the talk appeal to the general public, including parents, educators and business leaders.

“There are examples of how to, in a cost effective way without a lot of new infusion of money, take resources we have and get more of a return on investment in children,” said Sharon Ramey.

When: Oct. 4, 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Public reception begins at 4:30 p.m.)

Where: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, 2 Riverside Circle.