William & Mary Child Language Lab

Interested in having your child participate in Linguistics research?

Who are we?

We are a team of experienced faculty and undergraduate students studying children's language development at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia

What do we do?

We conduct 15-45 minute studies involving engaging stories, short videos, and fun games to look at how children learn their first language(s).

Current Studies

Infant Categorization

One of the earliest stages of language development is learning how to distinguish language – spoken or signed – from other sounds or motions. In other words, infants must first learn what in their environment is language before they can begin to learn anything about language. 

This is an enormous task, and we don't fully understand how they manage it — especially when it comes to sign languages! However, by analyzing how an infants' attention is directed by various visual cues, we can shed light on their learning process.

For this study, we're currently recruiting babies between 3-6 months! If you would like to schedule an appointment, you can sign up here: https://calendly.com/childlanguagelab/infant-language-study

Virtual Verb Learning

We're currently recruiting kids between 2-3 years old for a verb learning study! Your child will play a short game where they determine the meaning of a new fake verb, and we will use their results to make conclusions about how children acquire verb meanings! 


If you are interested in having your child participate, sign up for an in-person study with this link