WELCOME TO THE ELAN LAB
OUR VISION
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To understand early development as an emergent, self-organising process arising from the continuous coupling of brain, body, behaviour, and environment.
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To build a more ecological, interactionist, and process-based science of infant development.
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To pave the way for support and interventions that help children and families thrive.
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To provide a supportive and stimulating environment for training the next generation of research scientists.
CURRENT DIRECTIONS & NEW HORIZONS
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We study development as a process of becoming.
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Brain, body, behaviour, and environment are coupled from the start, continuously adapting to one another over time.
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We ask how this coevolving system gives rise to different developmental pathways in typically and atypically developing infants, across environments that vary in complexity, predictability, and opportunity for interaction.
See below for examples of our earlier work, which used established methods and provides an important foundation for our current process-based approach.
EARLY PREDICTORS OF LATER DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES IN DOWN SYNDROME, FRAGILE X SYNDROME, AND WILLIAMS SYNDROME
Our goal is to trace the developmental trajectories of later emerging, higher-level abilities (e.g., language) back to their basic-level roots (in, e.g., early visual attention) in children with Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and Williams syndrome. This is a longitudinal study (from 8 months to 10 years of age).
This is being funded by Autour des Williams, the British Academy, and the Waterloo Foundation.
THE EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO A BILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT ON COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS
Bilinguals outperform monolinguals in nonverbal tasks of cognitive control and are less affected by age-associated cognitive decline (the bilingual advantage). Yet the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the bilingual advantage remain controversial. The most influential explanation is that managing two languages during language production constantly draws upon, and thus strengthens, domain general (i.e., not language-specific) cognitive control mechanisms. However, this theory cannot explain why a bilingual advantage is found in preverbal infants. Other mechanisms must be involved. We propose that mere exposure to a bilingual environment leads to experience-driven adaptations that confer both cognitive advantages and disadvantages. We are testing this hypothesis by using eye tracking technology and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate neurocognitive processes in 7-month-old infants raised in bilingual vs. monolingual environments.
This is being funded by the British Academy.
EMBODIED LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: USING HEAD-MOUNTED EYE TRACKERS AND LENA TO UNDERSTAND WORD LEARNING IN ATYPICALLY DEVELOPING TODDLERS
We will use head-mounted eye trackers and Language Environment Analysis (LENA) to elucidate developmental constraints on language learning in toddlers with Down syndrome and Williams syndrome.
This is being funded by Better Data (which is sponsored by the British Academy).
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SLEEP AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often present with language delay. Typical language development is constrained by numerous factors, including sleep. This is because sleep is important for physical and mental processes such as attention, memory, and motivation. Although little is known about sleep in atypically developing infants and toddlers, it is often disrupted in older (school age) children and adults with a neurodevelopmental disorder. We therefore hypothesise that sleep may be disrupted, and constrain early language development, in infants and toddlers with a neurodevelopmental disorder.
We have collected sleep, language, and cognitive data from 80 infants/toddlers with Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and Williams syndrome, and 50 typically developing controls. Our preliminary analyses suggest that sleep is highly disrupted in the atypically developing infants/toddlers. But is it related to their early language development?
PEOPLE
DR DEAN D'SOUZA
Principal Investigator
I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at Cardiff University. My fellowship develops a process-centred, ecological, and interactionist approach to infant development, viewing infants and environments as coupled systems that adapt to one another over time. This work measures the complexity of infants’ everyday environments and combines this with multilevel naturalistic and experimental data, alongside computational modelling.
DR HANA D'SOUZA
Collaborator
Hana is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. She leads the Cardiff Babylab and is also the Deputy Director of the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science (CUCHDS).
DR NIVEEN OMAR
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Niveen studies how children learn from complex input, including word learning and the role of sleep in memory consolidation. In the ELAN Lab, she helps design and implement tasks examining infant–child interaction, exploration, and information-gathering. Her work focuses on how infants and children detect meaningful structure in their environments, and how these processes support learning and development over time.
DR FINTAN NAGLE
Collaborator
Fintan is a cognitive and vision scientist at Imperial College London, with extensive experience with software engineering and machine learning. He studied on the excellent UCL CoMPLEX MRes PhD programme, which allowed him to conduct four bioinformatics lab rotations followed by a three-year PhD. His doctoral work investigated, for the first time, the mechanisms of temporal visual search on dynamic scenes. Fintan is helping the ELAN lab to measure the complexity of the infants' everyday visual experiences.
SHREYA JANA
Research Assistant
Shreya is currently running our large-scale HOME Bilingual project. She was drawn to this project due to her own multilingual background and a keen interest in developmental psychology. She enjoys working with children and is presently setting up the study protocol.
MARCO CANGINI
PhD Student
Marco received his MSc in Language Sciences at University College London and is currently undertaking a PhD at Cardiff University. His current research at the ELAN Lab aims to advance our understanding of infant adaptations to bilingual environments. He is particularly interested in measuring the complexity of infants’ natural language environment and assessing its impact on early development, by combining multilevel naturalistic and experimental data.
ALICE JEWELL
Placement Student
Alice is a third-year psychology student at Cardiff University, undertaking her placement in the ELAN lab. Her interests lie in developmental psychology, especially language acquisition. She was drawn to the project as her own bilingual background has sparked a particular interest in how bilingual environments shape development. Her responsibilities include assisting with participant recruitment, data collection, and processing.
ALEXANDRIA DOLBEAR
Placement Student
Alexandria is a third year psychology undergraduate student at Cardiff University, undertaking her placement at ELAN Lab. She is interested in developmental psychology, with a particular fascination at how infants develop their language abilities and how adaptable they are. Her responsibilities include assisting with participant recruitment, data collection and processing.
LIBBY
Honorary Scientist
Libby is an ‘honorary scientist’ at the ELAN lab. She visited us 7 years ago with her brother to help with our research. Libby is currently working on a school project on scientists and sent us this picture!
NIAMH HALLIGAN
Research Assistant
"I studied Psychology at Cardiff University, where I developed a strong interest in developmental psychology, which led me to complete a placement year at CUCHDS during my undergraduate degree. My past experiences have continued to shape my passion for developmental psychology and my love of working with children and families. Due to my own bilingual background and experience attending a Welsh-medium school, I became interested in the ELAN lab and its research into bilingualism. I am particularly interested in how bilingual environments shape children’s development, particularly its’ influence on cognitive skills beyond language acquisition, such as attention."
PAST MEMBERS
SUSIE MAYER
BSc Placement Student
Susie was a third-year BSc psychology undergraduate at Cardiff University undertaking her placement in the ELAN lab. Her previous experiences working with children deepened her understanding of child behaviour, and she was eager to apply this knowledge in a psychological research setting. Her bilingualism, love for working with children, and strong passion for developmental psychology sparked her interest in this research placement.
STEFANIA CANGEMI
Erasmus Trainee
Stefania was a postgraduate student at the University of Verona in Italy. In collaboration with Hana D'Souza at the University of Cambridge, Stefania worked on observational data we collected from toddlers with Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and Williams syndrome. Our aim is to understand more about how toddlers with neurodevelopmental disorders and their parents interact in naturalistic settings.
DR DAN BRADY
Collaborator
Dan is a Research Software Engineer in the Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield. He has experience of writing research software and analysis pipelines using R, Python, and Julia, and has been developing scripts for one of our projects. He is also a keen advocate of open and reproducible research practices.
HARRISON WILSON
BSc Placement Student
Harrison is a psychology undergraduate placement student from Cardiff University. He is particularly interested in language acquisition and the remarkable ability infants have to adapt to their environment. He was drawn to the project due to its exciting use of cutting-edge research practices. His responsibilities include assisting with participant recruitment, data collection and processing, and managing social media and outreach communications.
PUBLICATIONS
References and Links to Papers
PRECURSORS TO LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
In order to understand how language abilities emerge in typically and atypically developing infants and toddlers, it is important to embrace complexity in development. In this paper, we describe evidence that early language development is an experience-dependent process, shaped by diverse, interconnected, interdependent developmental mechanisms, processes, and abilities (e.g., statistical learning, sampling, functional specialization, visual attention, social interaction, motor ability). We also present evidence from our studies on neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, Williams syndrome) that variations in these factors significantly contribute to language delay. Finally, we discuss how embracing complexity, which involves integrating data from different domains and levels of description across developmental time, may lead to a better understanding of language development and, critically, lead to more effective interventions for cases when language develops atypically.
EXPOSURE TO BILINGUAL INPUT MAY SHARPEN EARLY LEARNING MECHANISMS
Infants who are exposed to more varied, less predictable language input may need to process information more efficiently, perhaps by learning to construct, and get by on, less detailed models, so they can orient sooner to less familiar (but equally important) stimuli (e.g., a second language).
D’Souza, D., & D’Souza, H. (2016). Bilingual language control mechanisms in anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A developmental perspective. The Journal of Neuroscience, 36, 5434-5436.
D’Souza, D., Brady, D., Haensel, J. X., & D’Souza, H. (2020). Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development. Royal Society Open Science, 7, 7180191.
D’Souza, D., Brady, D., Haensel, J. X., & D’Souza, H. (2021). Early bilingual experience is associated with change detection ability in adults. Scientific Reports, 11, 2068.
IN THE NEWS
Our research has been reported in over 180 national and international news outlets, including radio shows such as BBC Radio 4's Inside Science and BBC World Service's Science in Action. Here we have picked our favourites. Click on the image for the article.
CONTACT US
ELAN lab
Centre for Human Developmental Science
70 Park Place,
Cardiff CF10 3AT
