Welcome to the Baby Language Lab

This lab, started in Fall 2008, is dedicated to understanding how infants and toddlers between 6 and 24 months learn to speak their first language. With the older age groups, we are especially interested in what infants know about the grammar of their language -- how words are combined together to make meaningful sentences. With the younger ages, we look at what skills infants bring to the task of listening to the language, such as sensitivities to the melodic properties of language, and how these skills influence their ability to learn their first language. Most of our research involves perceptual studies of infants. In these studies, we play sounds and video for infants. By measuring their interest in what they are seeing and hearing, we can learn about what they understand and perceive about the world around them. We also collect recordings of language that infants hear in different environments and analyze different characteristics of those language environments.

We are always looking for volunteers (babies and their parents or guardians) to come into our lab and participate in our studies. A typical visit takes less 30 minutes, and you will receive a small gift from us for participating, as well as parking reimbursement, and an enjoyable experience in our lab. Right now we are also recruiting mothers and daycare providers to participate in our language environment studies. Please give us a call or view the links below to learn more. We hope to see you soon!

News

Joanna Bhaskaran left the lab in October 2011 to focus on her graduate studies in the clinical program here at UofM. Joanna has been with the lab almost since it opened - first as a volunteer, then as lab coordinator and finally as an honours student. We are very grateful for all her hard work and dedication over the last few years. She will be missed! Add: Melissa Wong, the lab's first graduate student, completed her Masters degree in July 2011. Congratulations, Melissa!

In October, 2011, Joanna Bhaskaran received an award for her undergraduate poster presentation on the work she conducted for her honours thesis and over the summer in the lab. Lindsay Bacala, our perceptual lab co-ordinator, also received a poster award for research conducted in another lab.

In July, 2011, the lab was awarded a two-year SSHRC research grant entitled "Understanding the effect of child care on language environment" to Dr Melanie Soderstrom.

Dr Soderstrom was interviewed for a segment on CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera. It aired on May 15, 2010 as part of The Conversation Show. You can listen to the segment here.