Infant Pathways to Language: Methods, Models, and Research Directions
September 15-17, 2005
Mission Tempe Palms, Phoenix, AZ

Supported by the Merrill Advanced Studies Center and
the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)

Papers from the conference will be published as Measuring Language in Infancy, with editors John Colombo, Peggy McCardle and Lisa Freund (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Agenda and participants
Opening Session: Welcome and remarks
Mabel Rice, Director of the Merrill Center
John Colombo, conference organizer from The University of Kansas
Peggy McCardle, conference organizer from NICHD/National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Panel 1: Recognizing Patterns
Dick Aslin [Richard William R. Kenan Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Rochester] "What Statistical Learning Can and Can't Tell us about Language Acquisition"

Patricia Kuhl [William P. and Ruth Gerberding University Professor, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington] "Infant Speech Perception: Situating Early Language Acquisition Within a Neurobiological and Social Context"

Janet Werker [Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia] "Infant Speech Perception and Later Language Acquisition"

Panel 2: Recognizing Patterns II
Jenny Saffran [Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin] "Acquiring Grammatical Patterns: Constraints on Learning"

Lou Ann Gerken [Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona] "Input and Developmental Influences on Infant Generalization"

Panel 3: Patterns to Meaning
Andy Meltzoff [Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Washington] "Relations between Social Cognition and Early Language"

Judy DeLoache [Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia] "Symbol-Based Acquisition of Information: Learning about the There and Then"

Panel 4: Predictors of Language Emergence
John Colombo [Chair and Professor, Department of Psychology, The University of Kansas] "Attentional Predictors and Precursors of Language in the First Two Years"

Mabel Rice [Fred and Virginia Merrill Distinguished Professor of Advanced Studies, and Director, Child Language Program, The University of Kansas] "Predicting Late Language Emergence at 24 Months: More about the Child, Less about Maternal and Family Influences"

Lisa Freund [Neuropsychologist, Developmental Cognitive Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience, and Psychobiology Program, NICHD] "The NIH Pediatric Study of Normal Brain Development"

Panel 5: Getting Meaning
Susan Goldin-Meadow [Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago] "What Children's Hands Tell us about the Role that Linguistic Input Plays in Language Learning"

Sandra Waxman [Professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University] "All in Good Time: How do Infants Discover Distinct Types of Words and Map Them to Distinct Kinds of Meaning"

Models and Methods
Les Cohen [Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Texas] "Methods and Models in Early Labeling Research"

Gary Marcus [Associate Professor, Psychology and Neural Science, New York University]"What is the Language Faculty Made Of? Evidence from Human Infants and Molecular Biology"

Summary Remarks
Peggy McCardle [Linguist and Associate Branch Chief; Language, Bilingual, and Biliteracy Development and Disorders; NICHD] "Where Do We Go Now"?