Claire Vallotton

Dr. Vallotton studies Human Development, focusing on infants’ and toddlers’ communication development, and how to support their families and educators to provide the best early learning experiences. Children learn more in the first three years of life than they will at any other time in the lifespan. This rapid growth creates a period of great vulnerability and opportunity. Dr. Vallotton focuses on studying the qualities of caregiver-child interactions that support children’s communication skills, including the use of eye gaze and vocal noises, symbolic gestures (aka Baby Signs), and use of internal state language (talking about sensations like hear and feelings, emotions, thoughts, and other aspects and activities of the mind). The language and other communication skills (such as gestures, eye contact, vocal noises, facial expressions) that children build in these first three years are highly dependent on the qualities of their interactions with caregivers (parents, teachers, others), who vary depending on their linguistic background but also on the children’s communication skills. Her research has been honored by the New Investigator Award from the World Association for Infant Mental Health, and she was named and Exceptional Emerging Leader in Child Care Research by the Child Care Exchange.  REU students will be involved in research tasks such as transcribing and coding audio-visual data of adult-child interactions, or analyzing children’s story-books for the developmental opportunities embedded in the texts and images.