Studying Earlylanguageacquisition
 How
do infants first discover what segment of a stream of speech names
an object, a movement, an attribute? Imagine the problem being
similar to what you would face in a foreign country on hearing
an unfamiliar language. Not only would you not know the meaning
of each word, you probably wouldn't be able to identify where
a word begins and ends.
The National Science Foundation has awarded Nancy Rader, chair
of the Department of Psychology and associate professor, a three-year,
$135,300 grant to analyze the role a caregiver's gestures play
in helping a baby link sound and referent. Working with infants
9-14 months old, Rader and her students will conduct four studies
that examine how the dynamic nature of gestures and their timing
influence early word acquisition.
The studies are based on a perceptual theory developed by Rader's
former graduate student at UCLA, Patricia Zukow-Goldring, and
on preliminary research Theresa Cain '99 did at IC as an honors
project in psychology under Rader's guidance. Zukow-Goldring,
now in the linguistics department at the University of Southern
California, has also received NSF funding to study language acquisition
by infants, but ones from families who speak Spanish rather than
English. Rader and Zukow-Goldring will coordinate their research,
with each visiting the other's lab to ensure comparability.
Among other expenses, the NSF grant will fund four undergraduate
interns each year, two during the academic year and two during
the summer. The interns will help create videotaped scenarios
for the infants to watch and will work with the infants in the
cognition laboratory in Williams Hall. Rader is seeking 40 infants
from English-speaking families with varied educational backgrounds.
She encourages anyone who would like his or her baby to participate,
or who wants more information, to contact her at 607-274-3510
or rader@ithaca.edu.
Photo: Rader, right, at Cain's graduation from
IC
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