• Bousfield Building
    Weston A. Bousfield Psychology building

About Us

Developmental Division research areas and emphasis includes:

  • Language Acquisition (Coppola, Landi, Naigles, Suanda): 
- Language development across the lifespan
- Cognitive and social processes in language acquisition
- Reading development
- Acquisition and emergence of language across cultures, languages, spoken and sign languages, and input conditions
  • Social, Communicative and Emotional Development across the lifespan (Green, Naigles, Smith, Sheya, Suanda)
- Pre-linguistic communication
- Friendships and peer relations
- Parent-infant and dyadic interactions
- Social-emotional adjustment in childhood and adolescence
  • Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Approaches in Typically Developing Children and in Children with Language Disorders or Autism Spectrum Disorder  (Cuevas, Landi, Naigles)
- Neurogenetics
- Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR)
- Electroencephalography (EEG) / Event Related Potentials (ERP)
- Functional and Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI/sMRI)
  • Development of Basic and Higher Order Cognitive Processes (Coppola, Cuevas, Landi, Naigles, Sheya)
- Executive function
- Numeracy and number knowledge
- Concept and category learning
- Play
- Learning and memory

Recent Publications

Carrigan, E. M., & Coppola, M. (2017). Successful communication does not drive language development: Evidence from adult homesign. Cognition, 158, 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.09.012

Jasińska, K. K., Molfese, P. J., Kornilov, S. A., Mencl, W. E., Frost, S. J., Lee, M., ... & Landi, N. (2017). The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism is associated with structural neuroanatomical differences in young children: Implications for cognitive development. Behavioural Brain Research, 328, 48-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2017.03.014

Jyotishi, M., Fein, D., & Naigles, L. (2017) Investigating the Grammatical and Pragmatic Origins of Wh-Questions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Frontiers in Cognitive Science. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00319

Turvey, M. T., & Sheya, A. (2017). Non-obvious influences on perception-action abilities. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1-7. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-016-1223-2

Schwartz-Mette, R. A. & Smith, R. L. (2016). When does co-rumination facilitate depression contagion in adolescent friendships? Investigating intrapersonal and interpersonal factors. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2016.1197837.

Suanda, S. H., Smith, L. B., & Yu, C. (2016). The multisensory nature of verbal discourse in parent-toddler interactions. Developmental Neuropsychology, 41, 324-341. doi: 10.1080/87565641.2016.1256403.

Cuevas, K., Cannon, E. N., Yoo, K., & Fox, N. A. (2014). The infant EEG mu rhythm: Methodological considerations and best practices. Developmental Review, 34, 26-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2013.12.001