2021 Lectures
The Center for Children and Families welcomed parents and professionals for its 13th annual series of lectures, held virtually.
February 2, 2021
| Meghan Swanson, Ph.D. “Talking to Babies: The Universal Ingredient for Language Learning” |  |  |  |
During the first three years of life children go from babblings to saying hundreds of words. Babies complete this developmental feat with the help of their parents who provide them with their primary learning environment. Dr. Swanson will discuss the universal role that parents play in helping infants learn language. Her talk will explore the unique challenges facing children from diverse backgrounds, and how they can all be supported by responsive and developmentally appropriate caregiver speech.
| Salena Brody, Ph.D. “Conversations that Create Change: Talking to Kids about Injustice” | | | |
Research indicates that children are aware of racial categories from a very young age and that explicit conversations about racism can improve racial attitudes. Further, teaching children about the history of marginalized groups is among the most effective methods to reduce bias. This talk will explore how and where children receive information about racial injustice, focusing on four main areas: children’s racial awareness as they develop, parent/child conversations about race within the home, race-focused curricula at school, and real-world interventions aimed at reducing bias.
| Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Ph.D. “The Culture of Communication: Understanding How Culture Infuses Interactions Between Children and Caregivers” | |
Dr. Tamis-LeMonda studies infant and toddler learning and development in social and cultural contexts. In this talk, she will present a series of studies with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers that show how language inputs and interactions between caregivers and children reflect cultural values and norms.
This talk was held as part of the UT Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences Colloquium Series and was not recorded.
| Pamela Rollins, Ed.D., Andrea Warner-Czyz, Ph.D. “Relational Health: From Research to Practice with Families of Children with Autism or Hearing Differences” | | |
The 4th webinar in the UT System Early Childhood Scholars Series, focusing on relational health, featured Dr. Pamela Rollins and Dr. Andrea Warner-Czyz, both from the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing and faculty affiliates of the Center for Children and Families, The University of Texas at Dallas. They described their research on early social and communication development in children with autism (Dr. Rollins) and on effects of childhood hearing differences on family relationships (Dr. Warner-Czyz). Both specific intervention applications and broader implications for practice were discussed in each presentation.