Child Language Lab Newsletter - December 2019

Lab intern, Fleur Vissiers, and her supervisor, Titia Benders, will be looking for children aged 2 to 2.5 years old who speak English at home for a fun, child-friendly study on the language development of toddlers. So if your child is currently in that age-bracket, or will be in the first half of 2020, we would love to hear from you! For more information or to register your interest, please email Lab Coordinator, Isabel O'Keeffe.

Register online now.

An inclusive program for deaf and hard of hearing children.

Join an exciting science, technology, engineering and maths programs for Years 3-5 during the school holidays on 20 and 21 January. Classes are designed to teach concepts through experiments, art, drama, physical activity, craft & other hands-on activities.

Khan Milligan (above) was one of six PACE students who joined the Child Language Lab for a PACE internship in semester 2, supervised by Lab Deputy Directors, Titia Benders and Nan Xu Rattanasone.  Macquarie University’s prize-winning PACE program offers students authentic work-place experiences, and the Lab is happy to provide students a peak behind the scenes of working as a researcher. 

Reflections from the students include: Khan Milligan: “placement at the Child Language Lab has broadened my interest in speech, hearing and language sciences, and provided me with valuable insights into the wide array of intriguing projects and opportunities within Macquarie's research centres."

Jayden Eccles: “PACE has been my most fulfilling work-related experience."
Threse Vargas: "I learned about the practical work that is done during research, such as coding research data. Attending lab meetings also helped me gain insight about the collaborative nature of the research field."
Aanchal Mal: "[it] allowed me the opportunity to work alongside researchers and PhD students to gain a deeper understanding of the research conducted in speech and hearing sciences and how that research might improve the lives of people with hearing and language disorders."

Aanchal created a series of fantastic information and recruitment videos for members of the Lab including Titia Benders and PhD students Bec Holt, Rosanne Abrahamse (click on each of the researcher names to view the videos).

We are thankful for the work of each of these PACE students, from coding data to assisting with the recruitment of participants and wish them all the best.

We are thrilled to announce a new ARC-funded Discovery Project led by Lab Deputy Director, Titia Benders, along with Lab Director, Katherine Demuth, and Nicole Altvater-Mackensen (Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany): ‘The perception/production link in child language’.

The project aims to uncover the connected perception and production processes that underpin the language challenges for children with hearing loss, focusing on speech patterns also found in younger normal-hearing toddlers, and using innovative technologies that can generalize to the clinical practice. The project outcomes will significantly advance

theories  of child language development, and promise to inform more accurate and better-targeted intervention for children with hearing loss, providing social benefit by improving their listening and speaking skills.

You can hear more about Titia’s research in this video.

Lab Director, Katherine Demuth recently received the the Faculty of Human Sciences Research Translation award for enabling the application of knowledge by relevant stakeholders. She has also been renominated as a Distinguished Professor for a second term. Lab Deputy Director, Titia Benders, received the Human Sciences Early Career Researcher award for her research. Congratulations to both!

A big congratulations to Dr Ping Tang, who received the Faculty of Human Sciences David Hall Prize for Outstanding Higher Degree Research Thesis. Lab Director Katherine Demuth accepted the award on Ping's behalf since Ping is now based at Nanjing University of Science and Technology (but continues as an honorary member of the Child Language Lab).

New PhD student, Rosanne is settling in well and recently tested her first participants (including Sebastian, pictured here--thanks to him and his parents for letting us use this great photo)! In the new year we will be actively recruiting more pre-schoolers for her studies. We will be seeking 3-5-year-olds with both normal hearing and hearing loss who speak English at home. Please contact us if you are interested!

This year, PhD student Bec Holt has taken her studies on the road to Canberraand Perth. Travelling for data collection is becoming an important part of research for the Lab, as we make more connections with children with hearing loss around Australia. We are uniquely placed to do this thanks to excellent portable technology, including our portable eye-tracking equipment (airline carry-on size!)

Bec is grateful for all of her Canberra- and Perth-based participants, who have been enthusiastic and accommodating, for friends and collaborators in both locations who have helped with logistics, and for the administrative staff who have facilitated each trip. It has been a team effort! While data collection took up most of Bec's time away, she did have some time for sightseeing, including meeting a quokka on Rottnest Island (pictured)!

Bec is currently planning another trip to Canberra this school holidays. She is looking for participants with hearing loss aged 7-12 who speak English as their only language. To participate or find out more information, please email Lab Coordinator Isabel O'Keeffe.

A number of lab members attended the 44th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (7-10 November), including Lab Director Katherine Demuth, Lab PhD students Julien Millasseau and Bec Holt, former PhD student (and honorary Lab member) Ping Tang, and former visiting student Kyoji Iwamoto.

Ping presented the paper 'The representation of Mandarin tone sandhi by early-implanted children with cochlear implants', Julien presented the poster 'Unilateral Hearing Loss and the Acquisition of Plural Morphology', and Bec presented the poster 'Visual cues improve speech processing speed for children with hearing loss'. (View the abstracts online). Bec was awarded the Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA) travel award to attend.

The conference provided excellent opportunities for hearing about the latest research on language development, receiving feedback on the lab's research and networking with others in the field.

Lab members were part of the Centre for Language Sciences workshop on Language Acquisition in Children with Hearing Loss on 9 December 2019. The event was organised by Professor Rozz Thornton, Professor Linda Cupples and lab member Dr Jae-Hyun Kim. International keynote speakers were Professor Naama Friedmann (Tel Aviv University) and Professor Bob McMurray (University of Iowa), and there were research talks by Professor Cupples, and lab members Dr Ben Davies, Rebecca Holt and Julien Millasseau. You can read more about the workshop here.

On Friday 6 December, members of the lab contributed to the Australian Hearing Hub workshop for 125 Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf. This workshop provided ITODs the chance to learn about the services, research and resources that are available from the AHH member organisations. There were presentations and information booths from all of the member organisations, including the lab. Read more about the event here.

Lab Deputy Director, Nan Xu Rattanasone, presented the paper 'Bilingual preschoolers' comprehension of L2 English: 4-year-olds show emerging understanding of plural grammar' at a satellite workshop of the Australian Linguistics Society Conference: 'Typical and atypical language development in the multilingual and multicultural context'.

Workshop speakers (L-R): Prof. Ghil’ad Zuckermann, Dr. Yang Zhao, Dr. Sarah Verdon, Dr. Nan Xu Rattanasone, Prof. Wendy Pearce, Dr. Alice Chik, Dr. Xin Wang, Weifeng Han