So much to learn, so little time!

Children acquire language in interactive contexts as they often learn to repeat words and sentence structures used by their conversational partners. When we consider the role of speech input in supporting children’s language development, we primarily think of in-person interactions, but these have been limited during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the increase in online/remote communication, this talk will explore the extent to which children at different developmental stages can learn to produce sentence structures via audio+video and audio only interactions with an adult online.

We know that youth is a vulnerable time for mental health, and the pandemic has intensified concern in this area. Research has been exploring ‘resilience’, or adaptation in adversity, and how this relates to youth mental health. This brings promise in thinking about how to support mental health outcomes among our young people, but also risks acting as a ‘sticking plaster’ that avoids dealing with systemic and societal problems. In this talk Dr Ola Demkowicz explores some of the potential and pitfalls in applying the concept of resilience to youth mental health.

Children learn about the world though social interaction. Reasoning is a key part of social interaction, as it enables us to express and justify our beliefs to one another to reach joint decisions. We know that children develop reasoning skills through their conversations with others, especially in cooperative situations, where the goal is to reach a mutually beneficial decision. However, this is not always easy, as they might disagree with one another! So how do children navigate these interactions? We explore how children reason.