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Research

Patterns and Predictors of Language and Literacy Abilities 4-10 Years in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

This research focuses on three questions 1) What are the patterns of stability & change; 2) what are the predictors of this progression, and; 3) what is the...

Research

Duration of breast-feeding and language ability to middle childhood

There is controversy over whether increased breast-feeding duration has long-term benefits for language development.

News & Events

The Kids researcher awarded prestigious EU Horizon 2020 grant

Professor Cate Taylor, is part of an International cohort of researchers to secure over €1.45million in grant funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Research

Inner speech impairment in children with autism is associated with greater nonverbal than verbal skills

We present a new analysis of Whitehouse, Maybery, and Durkin's (2006, Experiment 3) data on inner speech in children with autism (CWA).

Research

Parent–child book reading across early childhood and child vocabulary in the early school years

The current study investigated the extent to which low levels of joint attention in infancy and parent-child book reading across early childhood increase the...

Research

Joint attention and parent-child book reading

Good language development is an integral component of school readiness and academic achievement.

Research

Screen Time and Parent-Child Talk When Children Are Aged 12 to 36 Months

Growing up in a language-rich home environment is important for children's language development in the early years. The concept of "technoference" (technology-based interference) suggests that screen time may be interfering with opportunities for talk and interactions between parent and child; however, limited longitudinal evidence exists exploring this association. 

Research

Arcuate fasciculus and pre-reading language development in children with prenatal alcohol exposure

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) contributes to widespread neurodevelopmental challenges, including reading, and has been associated with altered white matter. Here, we aimed to investigate whether arcuate fasciculus development is associated with pre-reading language skills in young children with PAE.

Research

Caregiver sensitivity predicts infant language use, and infant language complexity predicts caregiver language complexity, in the context of possible emerging autism

While theory supports bidirectional effects between caregiver sensitivity and language use, and infant language acquisition-both caregiver-to-infant and also infant-to-caregiver effects-empirical research has chiefly explored the former unidirectional path. In the context of infants showing early signs of autism, we investigated prospective bidirectional associations with 6-min free-play interaction samples collected for 103 caregivers and their infants (mean age 12-months; and followed up 6-months later).