Development and Lifespan Research Area

Members of the Development and Lifespan group focus on childhood development of memory, language and social cognition, visual attention and multimodal integration, literacy, emotion processing and well-being, compassion and mindfulness.

We work both with typically and atypically developing populations.

The Development and Lifespan group is part of the ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour.

Members

Find out more about our group members on their profile pages.

• Dr Ruth Ford
• Dr Dean D’Souza
• Dr Sarah Kuppen
• Dr John Lambie
• Dr Steven Stagg
• Elena Sakkalou
• Elizabeth Kirk
• Michael Wilby (Philosophy)

PhD researchers

• Melissa Coleman
• Sara Gowers
• Lilla Gyimes
• Fiona Howe
• Fathima Kodakkadan
• Li-Huan Tan

Research Assistants

• Manuela Stets
• Stefania Cangemi

We offer a Psychology PhD. We have also identified a range of innovative research project opportunities for postgraduate researchers.

News

Congratulations to Dr Dean D'Souza for press coverage of his new paper on bilingualism in infants. It was picked up by 16 international and national news outlets and 6 radio stations including BBC World Service, LBC News, and talkRADIO. The paper is entitled, 'Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development'.

Dean D'Souza has a new publication on sleep problems and the link between sleep and language in very young children with neurodevelopmental disorders. This study is the first to examine the relationship among children with Down's, Fragile X and Williams syndrome. The paper is entitled, 'Sleep is atypical across neurodevelopmental disorders in infants and toddlers: A cross-syndrome study'.

Dean D'Souza has had a paper published in Developmental Science identifying a previously unknown attentional impairment in infants with Down syndrome. The paper is entitled, 'Attentional abilities constrain language development: A cross-syndrome infant/toddler study'.

New and recent publications

D'Souza, D., Brady, D., Haensel, J.X. and D'Souza, H., 2020. Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development. Royal Society Open Science, 7(2). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.180191

D'Souza, D., D’Souza, H., Horváth, K., Plunkett, K. & Karmiloff-Smith, A., 2020. Sleep is atypical across neurodevelopmental disorders in infants and toddlers: A cross-syndrome study. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2020; 97: 103549 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2019.103549

D'Souza, D., et al. (in press). Attentional abilities constrain language development: A cross-syndrome infant/toddler study. Developmental Science. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12961