December 2016
Science Spotlight
Gestures in the News
LuCiD scientists have made the news recently talking about their research into babies first signs of communication. Many researchers have focussed on pointing as a baby's first communicative acts, whereas recent work in LuCiD has found that 'showing' and 'giving' gestures can be seen even earlier and were found to relate to later pointing behaviours. Read the article here.
Noisy Classrooms
Dr Ludovica Serratrice and Professor Wendy McCracken from the University of Manchester discuss the effects of noise in classrooms. They highlight the limiting effects of noise on children's ability to concentrate and complete tasks in a noisy environment. You can listen to their discussion here.
A Universal Language?
Professor Morten Christiansen one of our international co-investigators from Cornell University has recently identified commonalities between words across different languages. For example, in most languages the word for 'leaf' is likely to include the sounds 'l', 'p' or 'b'. Professor Christiansen explains that this doesn't mean all words have the same sounds but it is more frequent than would be expected by chance. Read more about this work here.
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Upcoming Events
Ongoing: LuCiD's 2016/17 Seminar Series Programme
LuCiD's successful seminar programme is back for its third year. Seminars are open to anyone wishing to attend. View the 2016/17 programme.
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ESRC Festival of Social Science
Art Baby - Music Baby- Language Baby
LuCiD worked with the Whitworth art gallery to host a series of multi-sensory workshops for babies and their grown-ups as part of this year's ESRC Festival of Social Science. Attendees were able to learn about techniques that help us figure out what children know, even before they can talk, and could speak to our scientists about what they can do to help boost their child's language development. Find out more here.
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Evidence Briefing
How can parents influence their children's language development?
We are often asked to recommend good quality research papers on the role that parents have in their children's language development. In this evidence briefing, Julian Pine and Caroline Rowland address this by collating some of the most influential research in this area.
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LuCiD Internships
Over the summer LuCiD offers second year students a paid opportunity to work with us on short research projects. This is a great way for students to gain valuable skills and experience life as a researcher. You can read their blogs here; Helen Ronayne in Liverpool, Kascha Visagie in Lancaster and Joanna Melville in Manchester.
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2nd LuCiD Conference
In September Manchester hosted the 2nd LuCiD annual conference, bringing together researchers working on language development. Our keynote speaker, Dorothy Bishop, sparked interesting debates over the two days contributing to the success of the conference. Find out more here.
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Resources for Practitioners
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Tablet based learning for children with autism spectrum disorders
As part of the Pearson #EducationLearn event Dr Calum Hartley presented a webinar summarising the latest research on communication interventions for children with ASD. He discusses the effectiveness of apps as a means to improving communication in this population. Access the presentation here (free, but registration required).
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Upcoming Blog
Paula McLaughlin, who recently joined the Language 0-5 team from speech therapy, has written a blog for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists outlining her experience within research and encouraging greater links between researchers and therapists working in practice. It will be published in February so keep an eye out.
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Parents & Caregivers Corner
 What comes before words?
A second article has been published by Amy Bidgood in eMagazine talking about the early findings from the Language 0-5 Project and explaining how much babies are learning about communication before they say their first words. Read more here.
Take part in our research
We are currently looking for parents of children aged 0-5 in the Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester areas who would be willing to come into our babylabs to take part in our research. Find out more about taking part in one of our studies.
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The ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) is a 5 year collaboration between the universities of Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester. Our mission is to bring about a step change in the understanding of how children learn to communicate with language, and deliver the evidence base necessary to design effective interventions in early years’ education and healthcare. We are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under the Centres and Large Grants Scheme (ref: ES/L008955/1). Our funding runs from September 2014 to August 2019.
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