We’re the Language Experience and Acquisition Research at NYU Lab and we are a research group studying how children learn language. Our research interfaces with linguistics, cognitive and developmental psychology, and communication sciences and disorders (speech-language pathology). We use a variety of behavioral methods, and primarily eye-tracking, to study language learning in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. We work with children who are developing neurotypically, late talking toddlers, and autistic preschoolers, taking a neurodiversity-affirming perspective. Here in NYC, we study children acquiring English, and we collaborate with researchers all over the world to study how children acquire other languages.
We ask questions like:
- How do children discover the meanings of words?
- How do children’s everyday experiences support language learning?
- What learning mechanisms do children use to learn words that have different semantic and syntactic properties?
- What is the role of language processing in language acquisition?
- How do language and communication disorders affect word learning?
Funding
This research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private foundations, including the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Charles H. Hood Foundation, and Sleep Research Society Foundation.
Learn more
If you are a parent, we invite you to visit our parents’ information page.
If you are a student interested in joining the research team, please contact Dr. Sudha Arunachalam for more information.
Contact us
email: learnlab@nyu.edu
call: (212) 998-5602
On social media:
Visit us
665 Broadway, Room 619
New York, NY 10012