How can early childhood development in different domains such as cognition, language, or motor skills be measured in everyday life?
Use a smartphone-based developmental diary app: the kleineWeltentdecker App
Daum, M.M., Bleiker, M., Wermelinger, S., Kurthen, I., Maffongelli, L., Antognini, K., Beisert, M. & Gampe, A. (2022). The kleineWeltentdecker App – A Smartphone-Based Developmental Diary. Behavior Research Methods.
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01755-7
Is infants’ preference for infant-directed speech universal?
The magnitude of IDS is modulated by development, native-language experience, and testing procedure.
ManyBabies Consortium with Gampe, A. (2020). Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(1), 24–52.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919900809
How can we estimate the language skills of bilinguals?
WE DEVELOPED THE BILEX to assess conceptual Vocabulary, translational equivalents, and total vocabulary. It is available in many languages.
Gampe, A., Kurthen, I., & Daum, M. M. (2018). BILEX: A new tool measuring bilingual children’s lexicons and translational equivalents. First Language, 38(3), 263–283.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723717736450
When do children learn to discriminate sounds?
Perceptual reorganization is not complete by the end of the first year of life. The Swiss German closure duration contrast is discriminated not before 11 months of age.
Schönhuber, M., Czeke, N., Gampe, A., & Grijzenhout, J. (2019). Infant perception of VOT and closure duration contrasts. Journal of Phonetics, 77, 100916.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2019.100916
How does the interrelation between action perception and action production develops across the lifespan?
lower levels of recurrence (i.e. greater flexibility) in perception were related to higher scores in action production across the lifespan.
Wermelinger, S., Gampe, A., & Daum, M. M. (2019). The dynamics of the interrelation of perception and action across the life span. Psychological Research, 83(1), 116–131.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1058-8
Is it easier to lern verb labels by observation or action imitation?
At the age of 2.5 years, action imitation is necessary to acquire a new verb label.
Gampe, A., Brauer, J., & Daum, M. M. (2016). Imitation is beneficial for verb learning in toddlers. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13(5), 594–613.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2016.1139495