Welcome to the Infant Communication Lab (ICL). The ICL studies the relationships between early motor development and communication & language in infants with and without developmental differences. Our lab is working to develop movement based interventions that are home based and parent mediated, and thus can be delivered at high doses to impact multiple interacting developmental systems. Current research is interested in understanding:
- The developmental cascade that happens as infants develop motor skills and explore their environment
- The way in which delay in motor skills can exert cascading developmental effects extending well beyond the motor domain to communication & language
- The developmental relationship between gesture and speech in children acquiring language typically
- The extent to which early gesture-speech links are sensitive to variation in input
- The nature of early motor and communicative development in children with an older sibling with autism