Exploring Multimodal Wearable Devices for Studying Children’s Learning Environments

The goal of this internship is to pilot wearable devices to record children’s language input and social interactions with the people around them. Over the past decade, wearable devices have been a game changer in developmental researchers’ access to naturalistic recordings of children’s learning environments. Insights gained from this line of research have unveiled the remarkable diversity of early language environments across communities and raised exciting questions about how environmental input shapes both language-general and language-specific learning pathways. While most work with wearable devices in fieldwork settings has focused on audio recordings, our team aims to incorporate multimodal recordings into fieldwork, including data streams such as video, acceleration, and heart rate. During this internship, you will: Pilot various wearable devices in a lab setting. Collaborate in designing and conducting experiments where caregivers of young children interact naturally. Evaluate the feasibility and performance of different wearable devices for capturing high-quality, multimodal data. We welcome students with an interest in language acquisition and developmental research. While a background in (psycho-)linguistics is not mandatory, candidates should possess: Basic technical skills to handle and evaluate wearable devices. A working knowledge of French, necessary for interacting with infants and their caregivers.