Learning and Development Lab

The Learning and Development Lab is part of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University. We study the acquisition of language, the relationship between language acquisition and language structure, and the recovery of language after damage to the brain.   

About Us

The Newport Lab includes two distinct but related lines of research.

The Learning and Development Lab focuses on studies of language acquisition, including studies of children acquiring English or American Sign Language as their native language and comparing children and adults learning miniature languages in the lab. Our primary questions concern understanding the mechanisms behind children’s remarkable abilities to learn languages (cf. statistical learning) and also the differences between children and adults in language learning.

Members of our lab include our lab manager; post-doctoral research fellows; graduate students from the Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience (IPN), the Department of Linguistics, and the Interdepartmental Concentration in Cognitive Science; and undergraduates from Georgetown University majors such as Psychology, Linguistics, and Neurobiology.

The Pediatric Stroke Research Project studies the neural and behavioral organization of language and visual-spatial skills in children and adults who have had a stroke. This project sheds important light on the capacity of the brain to reorganize language and cognitive functions after a brain injury.

Looking For Volunteers

We are currently looking for volunteers to participate in language learning studies. We are looking for children (ages 3 – 12 years) and adults (18 – 26 years). If you are interested in participating, please reach out by email or fill out our online interest form. If you would like to learn more about the research we do, check out our Research page.