The main aim of my postdoctoral project was to learn what in preverbal and nonverbal development is crucial for language acquisition. In the first part of my project, I was working with Dr Soonja Choi on the preverbal level of communication and study how children at the age of 14 to 26 months categorize spatial events. The question whether already infants' perception is influenced by language-specific categories was of particular interest for us. For that purpose, the studies were conducted in English and Korean.
The second part of my project was dedicated to nonverbal communication. Recent studies about development of language show that the preverbal level implies the involvement of gesture. I expected, therefore, that semantic knowledge is conveyed in this modality, which cannot be expressed in verbal use of language in children at this age. During this part, I was working with Dr Bennett Bertenthal at the University of Chicago, where I conducted a study about the early understanding of pointing in 4-6 months old infants. Working with Dr Karla McGregor at the Northwestern University Communication Science and Disorders, I learned about language development in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). In our collaborative study with Dr Amy Booth, we addressed the questions of how gesture can bootstrap language acquisition and how late talkers understand spatial relations.
The research was supported by a fellowship within the Postdoc-program of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from November 2002 to December 2003 and by the Emmy Noether-Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for 2004.
23.11.2006