Elika Bergelson\u2019s pathbreaking research on how babies acquire language will advance more quickly, thanks to a $1.25 M award from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH has recognized Bergelson as one of the nation\u2019s \u201cexceptional early career scientist\u201d by naming her as one of this year\u2019s 17 Early Independence Award recipients.<\/p>\n
The award, introduced in 2011, was designed to facilitate the careers of talented junior scientists by providing \u201can opportunity to start highly innovative research programs as early in their careers as possible.\u201d The Early Independence Award will provide $250,000 a year, for five years to support Bergelson’s research.<\/p>\n
“This program allows researchers to propose highly creative research projects across a broad range of biomedical and behavioral research areas that involve inherent risk but have the potential to lead to dramatic breakthroughs,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins.<\/p>\n
Bergelson, a newly-appointed research assistant professor in the University of Rochester\u2019s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, focuses on understanding how babies learn words between 6-to 18-months old from the visual, social, and linguistic world around them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do this from the baby’s own perspective,\u201d Bergelson said. “I like to say babies are made of magic. The rate they learn their native language is astounding! In this project we’re trying to figure out some piece of that magic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richard Aslin, the William R. Kenan Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, noted that Bergelson\u2019s work is unique in that it combines well-controlled studies in the lab that assess what words infants know, with in-the-home audio and video recordings of what words infants hear, and what they see when they hear these words.<\/p>\n
Aslin, who serves as Bergelson\u2019s mentor, is the founder and co-director of the Rochester Baby Lab, where Bergelson will carry out her research. Since 1984 the Baby Lab has been used to facilitate research studies in many different areas of inquiry with children from 4-months to 7-years-old. “Elika’s research ideas complement and extend research that has been a focus of the lab for many years,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I am especially excited to study how infants learn words here in Rochester,” Bergelson said, who expects to follow about 48 infants for one year for her study. \u201cThe Rochester Baby lab is a great center for research; they’ve been in the community for decades, and parents, children, and babies seem to really enjoy coming in and being part of studies.\u201d<\/p>\n
“The goal is to do this first project with typically-developing infants, to get really solid baseline data, so that in future work we can extend it to other populations, like infants at risk for language delay,\u201d Bergelson explained. \u201cStrong baseline data is an important backbone to that next stage.”<\/p>\n