On January 14, the field of language acquisition lost one of its founding mothers, Lois Bloom. After graduating with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, where she studied with famed sociolinguist William Labov in the Department of Linguistics, she moved to Teacher’s...
Baby Blog
In Memoriam: Celebrating Clancy Blair
The developmental psychology community mourns the loss of Dr. Clancy Blair, a scholar whose groundbreaking research and compassionate mentorship have left an indelible mark on our field. His prolific career began as a professor at Penn State before joining New York...
Kinship terms of address and reference among families in Singapore
This post is based on a poster with the same title that I and Suzy J. Styles presented at #ICIS2024, but given a different spin for the Infancy Baby Blog. Recently, I was describing my research on kinship terms to a friend, and how in Chinese culture, we never ever...
Peeking inside the brain prior to birth
The formation of neural circuitry is an astonishing feat. Within a matter of months, two individual cells transform into a fully functioning nervous system. By adulthood, a single cubic millimeter of human brain tissue, roughly the size of a sharpened pencil tip,...
The Impact of Wartime on Infant Development
Introduction In 2017, 535 million children (one quarter) of the world’s children lived in countries affected by armed conflict, violence, disaster and/or chronic crisis.[1] In 2018, over 29 million babies were born in conflict-affected areas, starting their lives in...
The ripple effect of early sleep: how childhood sleep patterns shape vocabulary, academic, and mental health outcomes
By Catia M. Oliveira1, Amy Atkinson2, Michelle St Clair3, Gareth Gaskell1, Lisa Henderson1 1 University of York, 2 University of Lancaster, 3 University of Bath Humans spend a large portion of their lives asleep. Whilst this unconscious state leaves us more...