Krista Byers-Heinlein

Dr. Byers-Heinlein's research investigates infant development, with a focus on language acquisition. Using primarily behavioural methods such as eye tracking, looking-time, sucking, and reaching measures. She is particularly interested in infants growing up in bilingual environments and the mechanisms that they use to acquire two languages simultaneously. Some current projects compare speech perception and word learning in monolingual and bilingual infants. A related line of work investigates bilingual parenting, and how the language strategies used by bilingual families influence children’s language learning. Findings are now used to detect bilingual children at risk for language impairment and delay.