HOME

Have you ever wondered how babies learn to talk?

Here at the Metcalf Infant Research Lab,

we are trying to find out!

Babies can do some really amazing things! At birth, they can recognize sound patterns of their native language! By 4 months, they can recognize their own names! By 6 months, they associate the word "mommy" with their own mother! Between 6 and 7 months, they begin to pull individual words out of the speech they hear and of course there's much , much more that they can do.

But most importantly, before they learn to tie their own shoes, children become experts at a system that linguists still haven't cracked, the human language!

We are always looking for volunteers to participate!

Our research relies on the generous participation of everyday parents who take time out of their lives to visit our lab with their infants and toddlers. Most of our studies involve one short visit (less than 30 minutes) to our lab, in which we measure your child's interest in sounds and words that are played through a speaker.

Since 1989, under the direction of Dr. James L. Morgan, we have been conducting research in Infant Speech Perception, in order to understand this amazing process. Over the years, we have been involved in a number of research projects - for example, how babies find the boundaries between words in speech (therearenospacesbetweenwordswhenwetalk) , what babies know about the individual sounds that make up the words of their language, and what kinds of properties of the speech they hear might be helpful in the learning process.

The Metcalf Infant Research Lab at

Brown University

Box 1821

Providence RI - 02912

401.863.2377

infant@brown.edu

Web Counter