Infant Language and Cognition

Our group investigates the process of early language acquisition, specifically the emergence and consolidation of speech perception and word-learning over monolingual and bilingual infants’ first two years of life, as well as interactions between these early language abilities and the development of general perceptual and cognitive capacities.

The primary aim of this research is to define the earliest determinants of later individual language ability, including but not limited to endogenous factors, such as family risk for developmental language disorders or hearing loss, and environmental factors, such as the quantity and quality of infants’ early language input.

We address these questions through cross-sectional and longitudinal designs that combine neurophysiological (EEG, fNIRS), behavioral (visual preference, eye-tracking), and observational (parent-infant interactions) techniques in the BCBL BabyLab.