Research Interests

I study how children learn individual words and categories, how this process changes over development, and what consequences that has for cognition. I use a range of experimental methodologies (including behavioral experiments, automated measurement, eye-tracking, and observational studies with typically and atypically developing children and adults, and analyses of linguistic corpora) to show how learning and behavior in one moment lead to cascading developmental effects across future moments of learning and behavior. I employ these methods in lab, preschool, and home settings to understand language learning in context.

Visit my Google Scholar page for a complete publication list.

See the Object and Word Learning Lab page for more info.

Objective measures of language and social interaction

What type of early language environments best support developmental outcomes in children with communication delays and disorders? I use automated measures of language (LENA) and movement (Ubisense) in inclusive preschool classrooms for children with hearing loss, autism, and developmental delays to quantify children’s language experiences with teachers and peers. I also use first-person perspective cameras and computer vision technologies to measure social communication behaviors in children with and without autism as they interact with their parents and clinicians in order to improve early diagnosis.

NOVEL NOUN GENERALIZATION

What do children even 'know' when they learn a new word? For example, when a child learns the word 'banana', has she learned something about its color, its shape, or both? Furthermore, little is known about individual differences in this knowledge, and what drives such differences: do differences in existing vocabulary knowledge lead to differences in what children remember about new words? To answer these questions, we are currently exploring children's and adults' knowledge and categorization of objects that they can already name (e.g., 'banana') and of novel objects for which we teach them a novel name (e.g., 'wug'). We’re especially interested in individual differences in categorization related to language delays.

ICONICITY IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Why do some words sound like what they mean? We recently found that children learning English and Spanish tend to acquire words high in iconicity, or correspondence between form and meaning, earlier than words low in iconicity. Ongoing research projects are exploring the role of iconicity in language development.

Emerging literacy development

Children with hearing loss are less likely to read at grade level than their typically hearing pears—a gap that exists as early as preschool. In a new multi-site collaboration with researchers at University of Washington, Washington State University, and Rush University Medical Center, our team is investigating predictors of emerging literacy skills in preschoolers with and without hearing loss. Our team collaborates with the UM Debbie Institute auditory oral program on this exciting new project.