inspiration growing
How Children LEARN
Inside UVA’s Child Development Labs
I recently volunteered my three-year-old daughter to participate in a research study at the Child Study Center, one of four Child Development Laboratories at UVA. With input from local babies and kids, UVA researchers are performing studies that will inform the child-psychology world at large, as well as give the rest of us better insight into our children, how best to design learning tools and create environments to better suit their development.
Teams of child psychologists at the Child Development Laboratories (CDL) conduct cutting- edge research into the cognitive, language and social
development of young children from infants as young as four-months-old to age 12. The Child Language and Learning Lab, directed by Dr. Vikram Jaswal, studies how learning language affects the way children think; the Early Development Lab, directed by Dr. Angeline Lillard, studies pretend play and best practices in schooling; the Child Study Center, directed by Dr. Judy DeLoache, researches how children master the many symbols necessary for thought and communication; and the Early Childhood Lab, directed by Dr. Rachel Keen, studies perceptual-motor problem-solving in babies and young children. The first two labs are located on Millmont Street and the latter two in Gilmer Hall UVA’s grounds.
I knew all four labs relied on local subjects for
research but, until now, I was reluctant to volunteer, fearing that participation would be time-consuming or stressful for my daughter or for me. (Mostly for me.) What if my daughter didn’t behave well or perform correctly? Would they say she wasn’t developing properly? That I was a bad parent? I needn’t have worried: “We are not assessing your
child,” says Kai Sherman, Lab Coordinator of the Child Study Center and the administrative liaison among all four labs. “We are looking for changes within an age group.” Fellow volunteering parent Julie Innes Caruccio
concurs: “They are testing a phenomenon, not your kid.” Caruccio has been taking her two children, ages 3 and 5, to CDL research studies since birth. As Assistant to the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer at UVA (with
BY KATHERINE LUDWIG Photos by Cat Thrasher
68 September 2010
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