Language Acquisition

Several Language Sciences faculty conduct research on how humans acquire language. Research projects span a wide range of issues, and include research on both first and second language acquisition, language learning in infancy, childhood, and adulthood, and language acquisition by typically developing children as well as those with cognitive impairments. The labs below all recruit student lab assistants as volunteers or for course credit or pay; see individual lab listings for details on how to apply.

 

Second Language Acquisition Lab

Jacee Cho is director of the SLA Lab, which investigates the process of second language acquisition from a cognitive perspective, including formal linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches.

Second Language Acquisition Lab at UW-Madison

Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Laboratory

Margarita Kaushanskaya is the director of the Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab, which studies how bilingualism influences linguistic and cognitive functioning in both children and adults.

Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab

Infant Learning Lab

Jenny Saffran is director of the Infant Learning Lab, which studies how infants and young children learn various aspects of their native language, as well as human learning generally.

Child participating in language experiment at the Infant Learning Lab

Little Listerners Study

Susan Ellis Weismer, Jenny Saffran, and Jan Edwards are PIs on the Little Listeners Study, which seeks to understand why some children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have a difficult time learning language, and what we might be able to do to help.