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Learning, Cognition, & Development Lab

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Learning, Cognition, & Development Lab

Thanks for "liking" us! In our lab, we study how young children learn and develop.

The Learning, Cognition, & Development Lab (LCD Lab) is a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, headed by Professor Haley Vlach of the Department of Educational Psychology. Our studies examine children's memory, language, categorization and transfer, and science learning. If you have looked through the website or have heard about our research and would like to have your child part

icipate in one of our studies, please contact the lab ([email protected]). If we are currently conducting a study with your child's age group, and your child is eligible to participate, we will call/email you to give you more information.

06/03/2025

Last weekend, Ashley and Yi presented their projects at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders (SRCLD) at the Menona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin. Ashley presented her poster “Can Parents Accurately Report Children’s Use of Words with Multiple Word Meanings” and Yi presented her poster “Characterizing Relations Between Preschoolers’ Science Vocabulary and Educational Media Use.” Their contributions highlighted impact of the LCD lab’s work on understanding early vocabulary and learning.

05/12/2025

During the first weekend of May, several of our graduate students in the LCD lab presented their work at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ashley presented her posters: “Can Parents Accurately Report Children’s Use of Word with Multiple Meanings?” and “Science Storybooks: A Platform for Promoting Children’s Learning of Concrete and Abstract Science Words?”. Yi presented her posters: “Exploring the Impact of Educational Media of Science Vocabulary Acquisition in Young Children” and “The Impact of Real-World Connections on Young Children’s Word Learning from Screen Media.” Ezgi presented her poster: “Developmental Differences in the Role of Linguistic Labels in Rule-Based Categorization.” Emma presented her poster: “Language Growth in Children Born Preterm: The Roles of Input and Parent Sensitivity.” Their presentations showcased various approaches to how children learn and use language across different contexts and developmental stages.

05/08/2025

On Friday, April 25th, several of the undergraduate students in our lab presented research projects at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Ava Sainterme and Dora Chang presented their poster: “The Effect of External Language Support in Category Learning in Adults.” Renata Almachnee presented her poster: “The Role of External Language Support in Rule-Based Categorization in Preschoolers.” Julia Xiong presented her poster: “Children’s Awareness in their Forgetting in Massed vs. Spaced Learning.” Maxwell Komisar presented a 10-minute presentation (a project from the Educational Neuroscience Lab) titled “Applying fFNIRs to Study the Educated Brain.” We thank them for all of their contributions over the past year!

05/06/2025

On April 7th, one of our undergraduate students, Julia Xiong, traveled to Pittsburg to attend the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. There, she presented her senior thesis titled “Children’s Awareness in their Forgetting in Massed vs. Spaced Learning?”. Julia’s project focused on children’s perceptions on the efficacy of massed versus spaced learning and their understanding of their forgetting across these differing learning strategies. We are proud of Julia and the hard work she put into her senior thesis!

03/31/2025

Several weeks ago, one of our PhD students, Ashley Reece, successfully defended her master’s thesis titled “Do Storybooks Promote Children’s Learning of Concrete and Abstract Science Nouns?”. Her research explored how young children learn new science concepts through storybook reading, a method that is both engaging and integral to their language development.

Science concepts can be challenging for young children to learn due to their abstractness and the abundance of many new words. Ashley’s thesis aimed to address this challenge by designing and testing a science book storybook from scratch. She examined whether 4- and 5-year-old children could learn specific science-related words – mixture, chemist, journal, supplies, theory, effect, result, and interest – through storybook reading. Additionally, children completed a memory task to assess their retention of these words. While Ashley’s findings suggested that the memory demands of her storybook may have been too high for children to successfully learn the words, this research has provided a foundation for future research. As a next step, Ashley is creating a new storybook with plans to decrease the memory demands of the book by teaching children fewer science words.

03/17/2025

We are proud to share that one of our graduate students, Yi Tong, has been selected as a recipient of the Advanced Achievement in Teaching Award at UW-Madison! She is one of 31 exceptional graduate students who have been selected as recipients of the 2024-25 Campus-Wide Teaching Assistant Awards, recognizing their commitment to teaching.

This prestigious award recognizes teaching assistants (TAs) with four or more semesters of teaching experience who have demonstrates excellence in the classroom while continuing their graduate studies. Yi studies how children learn words and how word learning shapes their thinking and understanding of the world.

Yi served as a Teaching Assistant for Ed Psych 320: Human Development in Infancy and Childhood three times and has been the primary instructor since Spring 2024. She is deeply passionate about applying research on how people learn to real-world classrooms, continuously refining her teaching approach based on experience and student feedback. She enjoys sharing her passion for child development with students and hopes to help them see the relevance of these topics in their own lives.

11/25/2024

Caitlyn Slawny, MS, CCC-SLP is a PhD candidate in the Communication Sciences & Disorders Department. She recently presented a talk entitled: "Blocked vs. Interleaved Exposure in Bilingual Children’s Word Learning” at the Boston University Conference on Language Development. This work investigates how bilingual preschool children learn novel words in English and Spanish sentences, within single- and dual-language conditions. Across two experiments, the dual-language condition varied in whether languages were blocked (i.e., Spanish first and English second) or interleaved (i.e., Spanish and English mixed). Bilingual children learned above chance regardless of condition, and preliminary data suggested that bilingual children learned better in an interleaved condition as compared to a blocked condition.

09/24/2024

Last week one of our graduate students, Sam Macksey, presented her First-Year Project!

Sam’s first year project focuses on addressing common science misconceptions in preschoolers. She is investigating the use of refutation texts, as a type of intervention, to combat these incorrect beliefs. Her research could provide valuable insights into utilizing engaging educational tools, such as storybooks, to promote deeper conceptual understanding in early childhood. Introducing refutation texts into preschool classrooms could help children develop conceptual change, critical thinking skills, and a more accurate understanding of science topics.

This symposium set a great tone for her upcoming semester as a second year PhD student.

08/08/2024

Meet Our Summer Education Research Program (SERP) Student: Marycarmen Hernandez-Mora!

Marycarmen Hernandez-Mora is studying Music Education (K-12) and ESL Instruction at Northeastern University in Chicago. This summer in the LCD Lab she developed an interactive storybook as a part of a project proposal, exploring whether 3–5-year-old children from lower socioeconomic status could learn to read sheet music through storybook exposures. After completing the Summer Education Research Experience (SERP) program, she is looking forward to continuing to study music cognition and memory as well gaining more experience presenting. After graduation, she would like to serve as a beginning band instructor in a Chicago Public School.

05/07/2024

Congrats to all of our undergraduates for presenting their research at the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium! Here are some pictures of their hard work!

04/24/2024

Hello everyone!

Our undergraduate lab members have been working very hard on their research for The 26th Undergraduate Research Symposium! The symposium will be held from 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM on Thursday, April 25, 2024, at Union South.

Here is an updated list of presenters including undergraduates from Rita's lab!

Session 1: 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM
Yee Cao, Poster #65, Who is Bilingual? Examining Adults’ Beliefs and Perceptions of Bilingualism
Yuchen (Rainy) Jin, Poster #85, Do Undergraduates Set Video Playback Speeds to Maximize Learning?
Noah Fellinger, Poster #87, Who Needs to Mix Things Up? Individual Differences and the Interleaving Effect
Sandra Sobus, talk in the Scholars room, Simultaneous Versus Sequential Second Language Acquisition: Empirically Testing Timing Effects

Session 2: 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM
Kim Otto, Poster #58, From Pages to Pixels: Science Books – But Not TV Shows And Apps – Predict Children’s Science Vocabulary
Vy Lu, Poster #85, When Does Self-Explanation Combined with Feedback Improve Learning?
Maddie Crist, talk in the Traditions room, Cognate Effects in Novel Morpheme Learning in Bilingual Children

Session 3: 6:15 PM - 7:30 PM
Julia Xiong, Poster #76, Can Children Learn Concrete and Abstract Science Nouns Through a Storybook?
Kaylin Gruen, Poster #78, Where Did I Learn That Word?: Children's Memories For New Words Across Contexts

Please come support our lab members if you have the chance!

04/22/2024

Happy Monday everyone, we have exciting news to kick off this week!

On April 9th, one of our graduate students, Melina, successfully defended her dissertation! Melina has been with the LCD lab for 7 years, and we want to congratulate her on this great accomplishment. Her project is focused on using dual language storybooks to examine whether there is an effect of code-switching on preschoolers' novel word learning. Melina will be working with Dr. Chen Yu at the University of Texas-Austin for post-doctoral research. Congratulations, again, Melina!

Address

694 Education Sciences 1025 W. Johnson Street
Madison, WI
53706

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://vlachlab.education.wisc.edu/

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