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Who are we?

The project has been led by:

Dr Kate Messenger (K.Messenger @ warwick.ac.uk) - Principal Investigator, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick

I have always enjoyed studying languages – my undergraduate degree at the University of Lancaster was in French Studies and Linguistics. This led me from learning languages to the study of how we learn languages as adults and as children, and a Masters in Developmental Linguisitics at the University of Edinburgh. There I also completed my PhD research (supervised by Holly!) in children’s language acquisition. Now based at the University of Warwick, I am interested in people's, especially learners', ability to understand and produce sentences and how these abilities are acquired; I spend lots of time in local nurseries and our campus lab carrying out describing games with preschoolers to find out more about these processes!

Prof. Holly Branigan (holly.branigan @ ed.ac.uk) - Co-Investigator, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh

I started off my academic career as a linguist, studying Linguistics, French and Chinese at the University of York. Then I realised what I was really interested in was how people use language, so I moved to the University of Edinburgh to do an MSc and PhD in Cognitive Science. After a stint at the University of Glasgow, I moved back to Edinburgh. Watching my two children learn to speak sparked a new interest in language development and how we can study it in young children. My children are no longer quite so young, but I’m still fascinated and I still enjoy playing language games! These days I spend my time studying language production in typically and atypically developing children as well as in adults.

 

The studies for this project were designed and carried out by the lead researcher on the project: Dr Leone Buckle (leone.buckle @ manchester.ac.uk) - now at the University of Manchester.

I completed my undergraduate degree in psychology and philosophy at the University of Liverpool before doing my Masters and PhD at the University of Manchester. My research looked at how children learn to produce and comprehend sentences based on their understanding of animate and inanimate objects. I investigated children’s tendency to reuse sentence structures that they had heard adults use and whether children talk about animate and inanimate objects in a similar manner to their caregivers. I loved conducting this research and I am thrilled to continue studying how children learn to produce sentences from their language experience as part of the LEaD project.

 

The research was supported by a number of researchers:

Gemma Catchpole - Project Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh

I completed my undergraduate degrees in psychology and English literature at Goldsmith’s College, University of London and The Open University respectively. I also have a Masters degree in developmental psychology from the University of Sussex. I have worked at the Institute of Education, University of London studying the effects of class size in primary schools and at the Sussex Baby Lab, University of Sussex where we investigated how babies see colour. I love children - I have four of my own – and I am excited to be going into nurseries to meet pre-schoolers for the LEaD project.

Tabitha Hogg - Research Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick

Alina Konradt - Research Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick

Laura Lindsay - Postgraduate Research Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh

I started off academic career at the university of Edinburgh studying psychology where I hoped I’d learn about why people behave differently in different social settings. It wasn’t long after starting my degree that I realised I was really interested in how people use language and more specifically, how children learn language to communicate with their caregivers. After my undergraduate degree, I stayed at Edinburgh to complete my masters and PhD, where I researched how children produce simple sentences and how they use external cues, such as what someone else has said, to help their own production. I loved conducting this research and I’m delighted to continue studying at how children learn to produce sentences with the LEaD project.”

 

 

 

 

 

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