ABOUT MY RESEARCH

Cognition, Language, & Development

I study how language is used as a mode of communication. Communication provides insight into how others perceive their surroundings, builds opportunities for collaboration, and allows us to navigate through the world. Every language we learn opens a new door through which we can learn about new cultures and new people, and in early life, we acquire language without being told to do so and without formal guidance, but simply as part of our human necessity to communicate.

In the spirit of this basic but essential part of our human existence, my work focuses on how cognition, language, and development intersect. How do we know what we know about the languages we learned as children? How do we develop the capacity to communicate and understand completely novel ideas, totally abstract notions, never-before-heard phrases? How do our environments, lifestyles, and experiences shape the way we learn, and why?

By seeking to answer questions like these, I hope to add to the corpus of knowledge on linguistic development, build educational programs that foster language development in childhood, and create interventions for when these linguistic processes develop atypically, such as in children with autism. Of particular interest is how to tailor these programs to people in countries outside of North America and Western Europe, who may need to navigate multilingual environments or who may face unique sociocultural challenges that have not yet been rigorously studied.

Interests

Linguistics
Cognitive Science
Early Childhood Development
Consulting
Research