Child Language and Speech Studies Lab
About Us
How do children master language so quickly and seemingly effortlessly, while adults often struggle for years to simply learn to order a meal in a new language? In Dr. Elizabeth Johnson’s Child Language and Speech Studies (CLASS) Lab at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), we examine the perceptual, cognitive, and social factors that contribute to children’s rapid mastery of human language. Our approach is inherently interdisciplinary, bringing together insights and methodologies from developmental psychology, various branches of linguistics, and the speech sciences. Importantly, much of our research is inspired by the linguistic diversity in the community surrounding UTM.
Latest Lab News
New paper published in Cognitive Science: The icing on the cake. Or is it frosting? The influence of group membership on children's lexical choices.
February 2024
Have you ever wondered how well infants can tell apart unfamiliar voices? If so, listen to PhD student Madeleine Yu discuss her research on this topic on the Across Acoustics Podcast.
January 2024
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Congratulations to Josie Davies and Ana Porto on winning 2nd place at the Student Research Symposium on Multilinguism for their poster "Does the Accent of the Experimenter Influence Children's Language Biases?"
December 2023
The CLASS lab would like to welcome our newest member, Dr. Holly Bradley. Holly is a postdoctoral fellow whose research focuses on EEG and language processing in infants.
November 2023
Research conducted by PhD candidate Priscilla Fung was featured on U of T News! Click here to read about her study on language development during the pandemic.
October 2023
The CLASS Lab has two fully funded PhD openings for September 2024. If you are interested, don't miss the department application deadline in early December! Click here for more information.
September 2023