How do young children learn new words?
This study focuses on infant attention and language development between 10-18 months. Also, we are studying how mothers and fathers respond to their infants during play interactions with familiar and novel objects. After playing with these objects, children will be asked to choose which object a label is referring to. 

For all visits, you and your child will wear a head-mounted eye-tracker so we can see where you are both looking while you play. 

How do infants communicate with their parents?

One study focuses on infant communication behaviors in social interactions, such as what types of vocalizations or gestures infants produce, where they are looking when they vocalize or point and how parents respond to these behaviors. In this study, infants (aged 10 and 12 months) and parents play with a variety of toysfor 30 minutes in a large playroom as they would at home. Mothers and fathers play separately with their infant so that we can see if infant communication is different when they are playing with their mother or father. We are exploring whether infants vocalize when looking at their parents or toys and how looking at things can change how parents respond.

Honors theses

Yelim Hong: Parental verbal responsiveness during prelinguistic vocal development: variability and association with language outcomes

Ahhyun Cheong: Infant pointing gesture and vocalization combinations: precursors to first labels?

Fanya Sun: Infant’s behavior and father’s responses: bidirectional effects in naturalistic social interactions

Jennifer Hand: Can infants shape their social interactions? An investigation of infant communicative acts and caregiver responsiveness

Jennifer Andersen: Differences between maternal and paternal responses to prelinguistic gestures and effects on language development

Kiley Dewhurst: Social bids for communication of children at risk for autism spectrum disorders: an examination of social behavior within mother-child interaction