Home / CLS Research Groups / By Field: First Language Acquisition / Processing
The Child Language Development Laboratory
Fields: First Language Acquisition, Atypical Populations
Faculty: Carol Miller
Graduate Students: Gerard (Trace) Poll
The Child Language Development Laboratory is equipped to collect high-quality analog and digital audio and video recordings. Necessary computer hardware and software is available for digitizing and editing audio as well as video. Several powerful statistical analysis software packages are used to meet a wide variety of research needs. Software for the analysis of language transcripts is also available. The lab is equipped with a number of instruments for assessment of language and cognition, and hardware and software for conducting computer-based experiments.
The Comparative Communication Laboratory
Fields: First Language Acquisition, Second Language Acquisition
Faculty: Dan Weiss
Graduate Students: Aaron Mitchel, Myro Joy Olida Lee, Katie Chapman
One of the main goals of the Comparative Communication Laboratory is the study of the mechanisms underlying language acquisition. These include statistical learning mechanisms that have been implicated in the early acquisition of phonetic categories and word boundaries, rule learning, and generalization of learning. Our approach compares the performance of human infants and adults, as well as nonhuman primates (hereafter primates) on a variety of behavioral tasks in order to identify the underlying similarities and differences both between species and within humans across stages of development. In addition, we are interested in studying select topics pertaining to cognition and conspecific communication in primates.
The Brain, Language, and Literacy Laboratory
Fields: First Language Acquisition, Second Language Acquisition, Atypical Populations
Faculty: Maya Misra
Research coordinator: Joyce Tam
Graduate students: Alice Kramer and Kristen Mettley
Undergraduate students: Doreen DiGangi, Beth Friedman, Liz Willis, and Bridgid Zvirblis
The Brain, Language, and Literacy Laboratory uses converging behavioral and neuroscience methods to study the processes underlying the development of speech and reading. This laboratory houses a 64-channel EEG/ERP system as well as facilities for cognitive behavioral testing and administration of standardized tests. Research in the laboratory focuses on neurocognitive correlates of language processing, emphasizing component skills in reading, automaticity of orthographic and phonological processing, subtypes of developmental dyslexia, and language selection mechanisms used by bilingual speakers.