Research in the WILD provides insights into not only the mechanisms driving early language acquisition, but also the ways in which the modality of input can facilitate the language development of both typical and atypical populations (e.g., preverbal infants, deaf children, language-delayed, African American toddlers). Specific topics of inquiry include early word and symbol learning, categorization and naming, perception and discrimination of spoken and signed languages, bilingualism, and the influence of multimodal input (words + gestures) on early linguistic milestones.
If you would like to learn more about what influenced Dr. Wilbourn's current research please click here.
| iPac |
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| Interactions between Parents and Children |
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Much of the language infants learn during the first two years comes from the verbal and gestural input they get from their caregivers. We also know that infants often influence their own language learning through the use of gestures, such as pointing. However, we still don't know a lot about how early communicative skills are built in the context of parent-child interactions. We also don't know how these patterns of interaction may look at different stages of development. In this study, parents and their infants play with toys and read a picture-book together in a naturalistic one-on-one setting. We are hoping to use the interactions we see in this study to find out more about how parents and children work together to build children's early vocabulary and communicative skills |
| Current age of interest: 10-36 months |
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| PALM |
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Pointing as a Learning Mechanism |
Data Collection Complete |
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Before infants are able to communicate with spoken language, they often begin communicating with their gestures. Pointing gestures in particular have been shown to play an important role in language development. However, it remains unclear how infants' early pointing gestures may influence their language development. The goal of this study is to learn more about how infants' early pointing gestures shape their language development. In this study, parents and their infants will sit together at a small table across from an experimenter. The experimenter will ask the child to point to different novel objects, and then teach the child the labels for these objects. |
Ages of interest: 9 - 12 months, 16 - 19 months, 20-24 months |
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°Bates, E. (1975). The aquisition of performatives prior to speech. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23084619. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 26(1), 17-28.
°Colonnesi, C., Stams, G. J. J. M., Koster, I., & Noom, M. J. (2010). The relation between pointing and language development: A meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 30(4), 352–366.
¨Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2013). A new look at infant pointing. Child development, 78(3), 705–22. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01025.x |
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| MOP |
| Motives of Pointing |
Data Collection Complete |
Infants and young children are not passive observers of the world around them - they are active contributors to their developmental experiences! One way children actively contribute to their learning experiences is by using their gestures to seek out information. For example, children will point towards objects not just because they want to have those objects, but also because they want to learn about those objects!
In this study, we ask what types of information infants are requesting when they gesture. We will do so by asking children to gesture towards novel toys. In response, we will give children different types of information about those toys (such as the toy's label, or how the toy works). By observing how satisfied children are when given different types of information, and how well they learn that new information, we can start to better understand how young children use their hands to shape their learning! |
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| Age of interest: 18 months |
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| ICE |
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| Isolating Communication Effectiveness |
Data Collection Complete |
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Nonverbal cues are powerful tools for social communication. Infants have been found to be able to both produce and follow nonverbal cues. This particular study is aimed at exploring infants' abilities to follow individual and combinations of nonverbal cues. For this study, infants on their parent's lap at a small table across from an experimenter. The experimenter directs the child's attention to different objects using different kinds of cues. These cues include head turns, eye gaze, and pointing gestures. We are interested in figuring out which cue is best at directing infants' attention.
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| Ages of interest 12 & 18 months |
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| EATS |
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| Emotion and Affect in Toddlers |
Data Collection Complete |
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Reading and understanding emotional expressions is an important skill for infants to have, as these emotional messages convey information about the objects and the people that surround them. Previous studies have concluded that infants can use these expressions of emotion to guide their decision-making in various situations. The current study seeks to understand not only how infants discriminate between different emotional expressions, but also how they then link these emotional expressions to their referents. This study in particular focuses on how infants make an associative link between expressions of happy and disgust and different food items.
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| Age of interest: 14 months |
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| EATS II |
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| Emotion and Affect in Toddlers |
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Now that we know infants at 14 months can tell the difference between a happy and a disgust facial expression, we’re trying to find out if this skill extends to verbal expressions of emotion as well. We have two goals for this second part of our EATS study: 1) to see if we can teach infants to link a verbal expression of disgust and happy with a facial expression of disgust and happy and 2) to determine if infants have already learned this link on their own by 14 months. We recently finished data collection for this phase and are working to interpret the results! |
| Age of interest: 14 months |
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| Storytelling Study |
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Data Collection Complete |
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We are interested in understanding the different ways in which people tell stories. This study explores how these differences are manifested using a storytelling task. In addition, to telling a story, participants will also be asked to listen to a story. Participants must be at least 18 years to participate. The study will take 45 minutes to an hour and participants will either earn class credit or $10 for their time. |
Current age of interest: Duke Undergraduates |
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