Infant cognition is a flourishing and respected field of inquiry, but its practitioners agree that a large share of experiments are underpowered and that replicability is a serious issue (Frank et al., 2017). A consortium consisting of all four babylabs in the Dutch Baby Brain and Cognition Network will replicate two exemplary studies, each fundamental to the core debates in the field. The algebraic rule learning study reported in Science by Marcus, Vijaya, Bandi and Vishton (1999) plays a key role in the debate on (innate) learning mechanisms involved in language acquisition, and whether these are human- and language-specific, while the study on cognitive gains of bilingualism, reported in PNAS by Kovács and Mehler (2004) is of fundamental importance in the debate on whether bilingualism has a positive influence on cognitive flexibility. By replicating each study in all four labs, we will improve statistical power of the studies, and test the robustness of the original results when the experiments are performed in different labs. In our data analyses, we will depart from the traditional frequentist methods used in the original studies. Specifically, a Bayesian sequential testing approach will be used in order to determine when enough evidence is gathered to evaluate the original findings. This approach also allows us to quantify evidence for the null hypothesis in case we cannot replicate the results of the original studies. Summarizing, by increasing statistical power, the aim of the current project - led by the Dutch Baby Brain and Cognition Network - is to solidify the results of two infant studies addressing fundamental questions concerning human cognition and its ontogenesis.
This project's aim is to predict (family risk of) dyslexia based on EEG (ERP) measurements in infants. State-of-the-art machine learning (deep learning) techniques will be employed to find early patterns in ERP data that are characteristic of (risk of) developmental dyslexia. See https://www.esciencecenter.nl/project/epodium
Dat kinderen gaan praten vinden we heel normaal. Maar wat als het niet vanzelf gaat, als je bijvoorbeeld een ontwikkelingsstoornis hebt? Door de vertraagde taalontwikkeling van kinderen met het 22q11-deletiesyndroom te onderzoeken hopen de onderzoekers beter te begrijpen wat taalontwikkeling mogelijk maakt, waar problemen kunnen ontstaan en hoe we kunnen helpen.
De eerste 1001 dagen in het leven van een kind, vanaf de conceptie tot de tweejarige leeftijd, zijn van essentieel belang voor de ontwikkeling van ons complexe brein. In die periode wordt de hersenstructuur (zoals de verschillende celtypen en de verbindingen tussen de verschillende hersenregio’s) gevormd, die op latere leeftijd bepalend zal zijn voor een scala aan cognitieve vaardigheden. Dit project focust zich op taalontwikkeling als voorbeeld van een belangrijke vaardigheid die afhankelijk is van een goede hersenontwikkeling. Welke invloed hebben prikkels op de taalverwerving (en taalstoornissen) in de eerste 1001 dagen van een mensenleven?
The current project will use machine learning techniques to explore if data on speech processing in infancy can predict the occurrence of later literacy difficulties in individual children. We perform a proof of principle study on existing vocabulary and speech discrimination data from infants at risk of DD and low-risk controls.
This study investigates relationships between language abilities and cognitive control in bilingual minority children in the Netherlands. The aim is to better understand the cognitive effects of bilingualism and to disentangle effects of bilingualism and Developmental Language Disorder.