Margarita Kaushanskaya

Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders

Director, Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab

Education

Ph.D. Northwestern University, Communication Sciences and Disorders
M.A. Northwestern University, Speech Language Pathology
B.A. University of California-Berkeley, Linguistics and Psychology

Research Statement

Rita’s research focuses on second-language acquisition and bilingualism in children and adults. The overall goal of her research program is to uncover the nature and the developmental trajectory of cognitive mechanisms that underlie language learning. Her work examines how monolingual and bilingual children and adults learn words in a new language, and how bilinguals manage their two languages when they must speak or read in one language only. Currently, Rita is exploring links between vocabulary learning and literacy in monolingual and bilingual children. Her research takes place in the Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Laboratory, housed in the Goodnight Hall and the Waisman Center.

Teaching

CS&D 240: Language Development in Children & Adolescents

Selected Publications

Gangopadhyay I, Davidson MM, Ellis Weismer S, Kaushanskaya M. (2016) The role of nonverbal working memory in morphosyntactic processing by school-aged monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 142:171-94. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.025.

Yoo J, Kaushanskaya M. (2015) Serial-position effects on a free-recall task in bilinguals. Memory. In Press.

Haebig E, Kaushanskaya M, Ellis Weismer S. (2015) Lexical Processing in School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Role of Semantics. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 45(12):4109-23. doi: 10.1007/s10803-015-2534-2.

Gross M, Buac M, Kaushanskaya M. (2014) Conceptual scoring of receptive and expressive vocabulary measures in simultaneous and sequential bilingual children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. 23(4):574-86. doi: 10.1044/2014_AJSLP-13-0026.

Kaushanskaya M, Gross M, Buac M. (2014) Effects of classroom bilingualism on task-shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children. Developmental Science. 17(4):564-83.

Buac M, Kaushanskaya M. (2014) The relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive control skills in bilingual children from low socio-economic backgrounds. Frontiers in Psychology. 26;5:1098. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01098.

Buac M, Gross M, Kaushanskaya M. (2014) The Role of Primary Caregiver Vocabulary Knowledge in the Development of Bilingual Children’s Vocabulary Skills. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research. 1;57(5):1804-16.

Kaushanskaya M, Yoo J, Van Hecke S. (2013) Word learning in adults with second-language experience: effects of phonological and referent familiarity. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research. 56(2):667-78.

Kaushanskaya M, Rechtzigel K. (2012) Concreteness effects in bilingual and monolingual word learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. In Press.

Yoo J, Kaushanskaya M. (2012) Phonological memory in bilinguals and monolinguals. Memory and Cognition. Mem Cognit. 2012 Nov;40(8):1314-30.

Kaushanskaya M, Blumenfeld HK, Marian V. (2011) The relationship between vocabulary and short-term memory measures in monolingual and bilingual speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism. Dec;15(4):408-425.

Kaushanskaya M, Marian V, Yoo J. (2011) Gender differences in adult word learning. Acta Psychologica. May;137(1):24-35.

Kaushanskaya M, Marian V. (2009) Bilingualism reduces native-language interference during novel-word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition. May;35(3):829-35.

Kaushanskaya M, Marian V. (2009) The bilingual advantage in novel word learning. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Aug;16(4):705-10.

Marian V, Kaushanskaya M. (2008) Words, feelings, and bilingualism: Cross-linguistic differences in emotionality of autobiographical memories. The Mental Lexicon. Jan 1;3(1):72-90.

Kaushanskaya M, Marian V. (2008) Mapping phonological information from auditory to written modality during foreign vocabulary learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Dec;1145:56-70.