We study how children learn different types of words and sentences.  We are particularly interested in finding out what kind of information children use when learning new words for objects, actions, or events.  None of our studies described below are clinical assessments.  All studies conducted in our lab have received ethics approval from McGill University and parents are assured that every effort is made to protect the interest of the children.  If you are interested in participating and have a child between 1 and 4 years of age, please call us at 514-398-1291 or email us for more information and to learn how you can participate.  Our studies rely on interested parents and child volunteers.

Study with a Habituation Method

The child will be shown a variety of animated events (e.g., an object jumping across the screen) while hearing various sentences containing a new word. These films will be shown repeatedly until the child begins to lose interest in them.  The child will then be shown a different but related set of animated events.  We will measure the amount of time the child looks at each event to help us determine how the children interpreted the new word.  Do children use their knowledge about the objects (e.g., what they look like, how they work, etc.)?  Or do they use the morphosyntactic information in the sentence they hear (e.g., ‘a dax’ versus ‘daxing’)?

Study with an Observational Method

The child’s speech and gestures will be videotaped while playing with his/her mother at a McGill University play room or at his/her home.  We will computerize and analyze the child’s speech and gestures at different ages to find out how children learn to use different types of words and sentences and how their use of gesture is related to their language development.  The duration of a videotaped session will be from 30 minutes to one hour.  To thank the children and their parents for their participation, they will receive a VHS copy of their videotaped session.  In the case where the child and the mother are asked to visit the university play room, free-parking and babysitting for other children will be provided.