Dr. Anika van der Klis MA

Martinus J. Langeveldgebouw
Heidelberglaan 1
Kamer H0.48
3584 CS Utrecht

Dr. Anika van der Klis MA

Researcher
Developmental Psychology
a.vanderklis@uu.nl

My PhD project was part of the YOUth cohort study, supervised by Prof René Kager and Dr Frans Adriaans. We analysed how caregivers use verbal and nonverbal language when responding to their infants during free play. The results highlight the importance of analysing multimodal and dyadic aspects of early interactions for predicting children's vocabulary outcomes.

Currently, I am a postdoc on the BRAVECHILD project supervised by Dr Caroline Junge. We examine infants' cortical tracking of speech, the development of the social brain network, and the relationships with children's later language profiles. I am also working on a project in collaboration with the Gemeente Utrecht (Municipality Utrecht) where we investigate whether the COVID-19 restrictions had an effect on children's early language and socio-emotional development.

My main research interests include language development, brain development, child vocabulary, early gestures, and caregiver-child interactions.