My research interests center on early cognitive and language development. A first area of research concerns the development of categorization abilities and the development of word meaning in infancy and early childhood (NSERC Discovery Grant). A second area of research concerns early social cognition, particularly the development of a theory of mind during the first two years of life. At what age and how infants attribute desires, emotions, and intentions is currently being examined by comparing infants' behaviors towards people and robots. One goal of this research program is to develop screening instruments for autism spectrum disorders. (SSHRC Insight grant). Finally, I am part of an international research team conducting a 5-year longitudinal study on bilingual and monolingual children to explore how early verbal skills predict literacy and school achievement (NICHD R01 grant).
