| Welcome
to the Website for UE's Programs in ...
The Cognitive and Neural
Sciences
Laboratories and Projects
The CNS programs at the University of
Evansville currently support two laboratories, one for neuroscience
and another for cognitive psychology, along with a research project in
cognitive technology:
The Language and Cognitive
Development Laboratory
Students
and faculty working in the Language and Cognitive Development Research
Lab are investigating the beginnings of language development in young
children. Words are the building
blocks of language, and language is one of the key behaviors that
distinguishes us from animals. We know a great deal about when
children say their first words. We know much less about how they learn
these words. In the last 20 years, advances in the study of infant
development have allowed us to view the processes of early word
learning for the first time.
Currently,
we are conducting a series of studies that looks at how children
categorize and label objects. On
the surface, noun learning appears simple; many nouns name things
– things that you can touch, pick up, and show to another.
However, many of the early nouns that children learn are not so
simple. What does a
“toy” look like, for instance?
Why is a bean bag chair a chair?
It doesn’t look like the other chairs, yet young toddlers
quickly learn that they are the same type of thing, with the same
name. In our lab, we are
exploring which aspects of the object children use to categorize
objects. Is it function (ex.,
you sit on chairs)? Or is it shape (most balls are round)? Or could
children rely on texture (teddy bears are soft)?
Finally, is it that children simply are trusting, and they rely
on what their parents, and the adults around them, say (ex., “that
is not a toy!”).
While
many researchers over the past 30 years have been interested in word
learning of typically developing children, unfortunately little
research has studied the development of children with disabilities.
It is very important for us to understand word learning in
“normal” children; that knowledge forms the basis for judging if a
child is learning things at an expected rate, or if they are falling
behind, and might need some help to get caught up with other children.
However, it is also essential to understand how word learning
occurs in children with special needs. Do
they use the same strategies as typically-developing children (but are
simply less efficient with those techniques)?
Or, do they possibly rely on other skills and other sources of
information than most children? Before
we can successfully help children with special needs, we must learn a)
what skills and strategies typically developing children use and b)
what skills and strategies children with special needs use.
In the Language and Cognitive Development Lab, Dr. Hennon and
her students are working to investigate those questions to help
researchers, therapists, and parents better understand how children
learn words.
Grants
Courtney,
M., Green, B., & Hennon, E. A. (2007).
Language development and
word extension in infants and toddlers.
UExplore Undergraduate Research Grant, University of
Evansville, $9480.
Kappos,
A., & Hennon, E. A. (2005). Eyewitness
memory: A comparison of written and verbal misinformation on recall of
an observed event. UExplore Undergraduate Research Grant,
University of Evansville, $1488.
Research
Assistants
Current:
Alex Bies, Matt Courtney, Kathryn Cummins, Bonnie Green, Megan
Halstead and Krystle Working.
Past:
Ashleigh Kappos and Myrna Slaubugh.
|