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Speech & Language Science Laboratories

Bilingual Child Language Research Lab

The Bilingual Child Language Research Laboratory (BCLRL) is located in the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences building on campus. The BCLRL’s research program focuses on studies of language in children with and without language impairment from various bilingual (Spanish-English) backgrounds.

Bilingualism and Cognition Laboratory

  • Henrike Blumendeld, Director

The Bilingualism and Cognition Laboratory is located in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Building on the main campus. The research conducted in this laboratory focuses on how general cognitive resources support language in monolinguals and bilinguals across the life span. Specifically, we are interested in how extensive bilingual experience shapes the linguistic and cognitive systems as we age, and how bilingual language experience, language learning history, proficiency levels, and cognitive factors influence the expression of aphasia. The laboratory facilities include an EyeLink eye-tracking system, which we use to track the time-course of word activation during monolingual and bilingual language processing, as well as work stations for lab members and research participants. The laboratory provides research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Child Language & Cognitive Processes Lab

The Child Language & Cognitive Processes Laboratory works with children with and without Specific Language Impairment and other language disorders. The laboratory’s research focuses on working memory, word learning and mental representation of words and sounds.

Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

The Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory consists of four separate research areas in the field of cognitive neuroscience: aphasia, language development, neuroimaging, and psycholinguistics.

Under the direction of Dr. Tracy Love-Geffen, the CNL’s research efforts are centered on the study of human cognitive processes, with a major emphasis on language processing in adults and children throughout the life span.

Language Acquisition, Poverty, and Culture Lab

  • Sonja L. Pruitt, Director

The Language Acquisition, Poverty, and Culture Laboratory is located in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Building on the main campus (SLHS 101). The mission of the lab is to foster research in child language development and disorders. The disorder that is primarily studied is Specific Language Impairment (SLI). The primary research focus of the lab is to detail the vocabulary and grammar of preschool children and children diagnosed with to improve the assessment and intervention practices of Speech Language Pathologists. Child language development in the context of linguistic diversity and poverty, efficacy of prevention models for “at-risk” populations, and the role of child language research in shaping public policy are other areas of research that we actively pursue.

Language and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

The Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience (LLCN) is located at 6495 Alvarado Road, Suite 200. The LLCN research program focuses on signed languages to ask questions about the nature of human language, about the relation between language and other cognitive systems, and about the neural systems that underlie language and cognition. The lab facilities include a filming studio, digital editing suites, an SMI head-mounted eye tracking system for measuring eye gaze, and an NDI Optotrak Certus for measuring movement. Neuroimaging research is conducted at the Center for Functional MRI at UCSD and at the University of Iowa PET Imaging Center. The LLCN provides a rich research training ground for Deaf and hearing students (undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral). Please click on the lab link for more information.

Language Processes Lab

The Language Processes Lab is the primary research laboratory for Dr. Shapiro. The primary focus of the Language Processes Lab is to investigate how we go about comprehending sentences and what that tells us about how the mind and brain are organized for language. We examine language and cognitive processing in adults who are healthy, as well as in those individuals who have had a stroke and who have aphasia. Dr. Shapiro’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Neuropsychology Laboratory

  • Beverly Wulfeck, Director

The Neuropsychology lab is located at the CC-Alvarado building. It serves as the primary research and teaching laboratory for Dr. Beverly Wulfeck, a cognitive psychologist who conducts research in adult aphasia and childhood language disorders. The student research lab has microcomputers with a wide range of text processing, graphical, and statistical software packages. The lab is equipped with video and audio taping, and language ranscription equipment to code and process research data. The testing room is equipped with microcomputers, dual monitors, a sound system, and a Macintosh powerbook for computer based experiments of language processing and attention. All computers are connected to the SDSU system and to the Internet. The focus of the research in this laboratory has been in the brain bases of disorders of language and cognition in adults and children, and in relationships between language specific disabilities and cognitive processing deficits. Dr. Wulfeck has been a pioneer in the development of real time processing paradigms to examine language and cognitive processing capacities in children and adults. In addition to her own grants, Dr. Wulfeck has been a co-investigator in cross-linguistic studies of aphasia with Elizabeth Bates (UCSD) for 12 years. Dr. Wulfeck’s research incorporates graduate students working to establish a child and adult language disorders research program that builds upon the clinical populations in the SDSU Communications Clinic. This program will provide research opportunities for clinical faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate students

Phonological Typologies Lab

The Phonological Typologies Laboratory is located in the SLHS Building and serves as the primary teaching and research laboratory for Dr. Jessica Barlow, a linguist who conducts research in phonological acquisition and disorders. The lab is equipped with state-of-the art audio and video recording equipment and computer software for the analysis of speech obtained from monolingual and bilingual adults, typically developing children, and children with phonological disorders. The primary research focus of the lab is to characterize the development of sounds, sound patterns, and sound sequences in phonological acquisition, and how this informs our understanding of universal properties of language generally. This in turn is applied clinically order to guide appropriate assessment and treatment strategies for phonological disorders.

Speech Physiology Lab

The Speech Physiology Lab is located in SLHS building. The focus of the laboratory is to examine changes in speech physiology and speech motor performance over the course of typical development and how these developmental changes differ in children with speech disorders. In addition, the lab investigates the relations between cognition, language, and speech motor performance interact during speech and language development. The lab primarily uses an eight-camera optical motion capture system to record and transduce the movements of the lip and jaw and also uses of electromyography, aerodynamics, and acoustic analysis techniques.