Welcome to the Language Development Lab! Our research explores a number of domains in speech perception and language acquisition.
We are interested in better understanding how children acquire spoken language, and how perception of language changes with development. We hope that our research can help parents better understand language development in their own children - but this is only possible through the participation of wonderful families in our community!
04/23/2021
We have an online study available for bilingual five-year-olds! Families can participate anytime by visiting https://go.umd.edu/CanYouHearMeNow, or contact us at [email protected] to learn more. Please share with any families you know who may be interested in participating!
11/13/2019
Fundraising for First Book Gift a children's book this holiday season -- Holiday Book drive at UMD!
09/21/2019
Come visit the Language Development Lab at the University of Maryland! We are looking for families with children from 8 months - 10 years of age to participate in our studies. We study how children learn language and how their perception of language changes over development. Our research is made possible through the participation of local families, and we hope you can help us learn more!
Our studies are designed to be fun for your child, and involve a short visit to our lab on the UMD College Park campus. We provide free parking and baby-sitting for your visit, and children receive a thank-you gift for participating!
Please share this information with anyone you know who may be interested! Feel free to contact us at 301-405-2730 or [email protected]! Also check out our research group, the Infant and Child Studies Consortium, for information on participating in child development studies in other labs at UMD. Learn more at childstudies.umd.edu!
We hope to meet you soon!
07/15/2019
Summer is a great time to come to campus to participate in a study. To sign up, visit childstudies.umd.edu. Then researchers can let you know when your child is the right age for a study!
05/24/2019
Congratulations to our amazing graduates Kelly, Rachel, Mandy, Dani, and Tiara! Kelly and Tiara graduated with their Master's degrees and have accepted jobs as speech-language pathologists. Rachel, Dani, and Mandy will all be here at UMD to start their Master's in the fall, along with our lab's December grads Nada and Veeda! We are so proud of our grads' accomplishments and wish them all the best for their exciting next chapters!
02/06/2019
Today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Did you know that almost all the research on concussions focuses on men? We're working on characterizing the injuries and experiences of women in sports, and gaining a broader understanding of how concussions and bodily injuries affect people of all genders as they return to work or school.
We're looking for volleyball players and weightlifters (participating in these sports at any level) who are 18-55 years old to complete a short online survey using reasoning and language skills. We are especially seeking female participants. Please share widely with teammates and friends!
--Survey links--
Volleyball: http://go.umd.edu/volleyball
Weightlifting: http://go.umd.edu/strength
Thank you for your help!
01/29/2019
Go to bed! Brain researchers warn that lack of sleep is a public health crisis. In the digital age, adults are getting less and less shut-eye. And science says it may be making us sick.
12/21/2018
Happy Holidays from all of us at the Language Development Lab! We be closed starting tomorrow Dec. 22nd, and will reopen in the new year. We wish all our junior scientists joyful and fun-filled time with their families this season, and we hope to see you soon in 2019!
12/14/2018
The University of Maryland Hearing and Speech Clinic has a Youtube channel! Check out their videos for parents, created by clinicians here in our department - like this one about using signs to better communicate with your baby or toddler!
11/28/2018
Happy ! It’s the most wonderful time of year, and also time for our second Holiday Book Drive. The Learning to Talk Lab at the University of MD, in partnership with the Baltimore City Public Schools, is evaluating whether a dialect-shifting language arts curriculum supplement improves early reading skills for kindergarten and first grade children in Title 1 schools in Baltimore. This drive benefits the students we work with through our Toggle Talk project in Baltimore City Public Schools.
Our goal this year is once again to provide each of the 550 kindergarten and 1st grade students at our partnership schools a new book to take home this holiday season. While one of our goals is to promote literacy over the school year breaks, we also want to gift books that highlight culturally and linguistically diverse characters and experiences.
To do this, we need your help! If you’d like to support learning and make a student’s holiday season a little brighter, please go to the link below! Purchase as many books as your would like, and they will be delivered directly to our lab. Our team will do the rest, and personally wrap each book and deliver them to the students before the winter break.
Please feel free to share our post and link, to spread the word about our goal. Thank you very much for supporting our book drive this year!
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1YOYBSS2IF6JT
11/26/2018
Bringing Up Baby This week we focus on the behavior of the youngest members of the human race. We try to translate the mysterious language of babies. And we ask, when should we step back and just let our children be?