Skills

Eye tracking

Designing, running, and analysing eye tracking experiments with children and adults using Eyelink.

Standardised language assessments

Testing, scoring, and analysing language assessments such as the CELF Preschool 2; BPVS3; Bayley and PLS.

Randomised controlled trials

Designing, running, and analysing a shared book reading intervention with a reading charity.

Research experience

 
 
 
 
 

Lecturer

Liverpool Hope University

Jan 2021 – Present Liverpool
I have recently joined the Department of Psychology and will be teaching research methods and statistics!
 
 
 
 
 

Postdoctoral Researcher (0.8 FTE)

University of Leeds

Feb 2018 – Jul 2020 Leeds
I have just finished working on an ESRC project with Dr Cat Davies in which we investigated how children experience, understand, and use adjectives across the socioeconomic spectrum. Using eyetracking experiments and corpus analyses, the project aimed to reveal how children’s socioeconomic background might affect their descriptive language abilities.
 
 
 
 
 

Postdoctoral Researcher

University of Liverpool

Apr 2015 – Jan 2018 Liverpool
I have recently completed a 3-year post doctoral position at the University of Liverpool, in which I explored how shared book reading fosters children’s language development.

Featured Publications

Journal of Research in Reading

In a pre-registered cluster randomised controlled trial, 85 lower SES families and their 3- to 4-year old children from 10 different preschools were randomly allocated to take part in The Reader’s Shared Reading programme (intervention) or an existing ‘Story Time’ group at a library (control), once a week for eight weeks. Three outcome measures were assessed at baseline and post-intervention; (i) attendance, (ii) enjoyment of the reading groups, and (iii) caregivers' knowledge of, attitudes and behaviours towards reading. A fourth, - children’s vocabulary - was assessed at baseline and four weeks post-intervention. Families were significantly more likely to attend the intervention group and rated it more favourably, compared to the control group. However, there were no significant effects on caregivers' knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, or on children’s language. The intervention was only successful in engaging families from disadvantaged backgrounds in shared reading.
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Publications

In this paper we present three different experiments to provide a comprehensive picture of whether adults can learn complex routes …
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In a pre-registered cluster randomised controlled trial, 85 lower SES families and their 3- to 4-year old children from 10 different …
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The current meta-analysis explored whether shared reading interventions are equally effective (a) across a range of study designs; (b) …
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The fact that many sub-populations do not take part in research, especially participants from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, is …
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In our novel corpus of UK English, adjectives occurred more frequently in prenominal than in postnominal (predicative) syntactic …
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A total of 80 participants from the United Kingdom in four groups of 20 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and adults were shown …
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The case for psychosocial interventions in relation to chronic pain, one of the most common health issues in contemporary healthcare, …
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In two studies, a total of 72 5-year olds were shown a route in a six turn maze in a virtual environment and were then asked to retrace …
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Participants were shown a route in a virtual environment, before they were asked to retrace this route until they had achieved two …
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Five hundred thefts from motor vehicles offences recorded by Northamptonshire Police (UK) between 14 January 2010 and 28 February 2011 …
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12 to 14 year old adolescents were asked to commit (n = 26) or not to commit (n = 26) a mock crime, and at interview to deny …
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Projects

Children’s experience, understanding, and use of adjectives across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Using eyetracking experiments, corpus analyses, and a randomised controlled trial, the project aims to reveal how children’s …

Promoting language development via shared reading

The aim of this project was to determine how shared reading promotes child language development, and use this knowledge to make it an …

Investigating strategies for environmental learning in typical and atypical development.

This project identified the specific strategies that people use to find their way in virtual environments. individuals with Down …

Blogs

And just like that, my time as a Research Fellow at the Leeds Child Development Unit has come to an end. For the past two and half …
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I’ve recently been involved with filming some short clips for the BBC’s Tiny Happy People campaign. The initiative aims to …
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Thanks to everyone who came along this morning to our Leeds Child Development workshop on shared book reading. Lots of fruitful …
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Families who visit us at the Leeds Child Development Unit often raise questions about their child’s language development. Here at …
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In this post, Dr Cat Davies and I write about the importance of discussing the research on children’s language development with …
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This was a question I used to get asked a lot by my friends when I was a PhD student. It’s a question I still find myself asking …
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This was exactly what a parent recently said to me after visiting the Leeds Child Development Unit (LCDU) to take part in one of our …
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Thanks to everyone who came along this morning to our Leeds Child Development workshop on shared book reading. Lots of fruitful …
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We were fortunate enough to have spent a week in late April visiting Dr. Sudha Arunachalam at the Language Experience and Acquisition …
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There is lots of evidence to show that shared reading has a positive effect on children’s language development (read this summary …
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I was fortunate enough to have just spent the last four weeks working with Professor Elaine Reese at the University of Otago in …
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I visited my two-year-old niece over the Easter weekend. Before I’d had a chance to take my coat off, she came running over to me with …
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I recently attended an early career researcher workshop at Tianjin Normal University in China. The aim of the three day workshop was to …
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Contact

  • Room B.20, Michael Sadler Building, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
  • DM Me