Before this semester, I didn’t know it was possible to be intellectually humbled by someone who still wears Velcro shoes. Then I started working at a developmental psychology lab.
I’ve just completed my second semester at Snedeker Lab in the Harvard Lab for Developmental Studies, where we study how young children acquire and use language. This includes studying how children understand the meanings of words and sentences, and how they use context to interpret language. Coming in, I expected to assist with data collection and pick up a few insights into toddler behavior. However, I soon realized the work was raising deeper questions, not just about what children know but how we can even begin to measure and define that knowledge in the first place.
Our study aims to address this through an imitation task with 18 to 21-month-old toddlers. We want to know if they can understand and generalize roles like “do-er” or “receiver” (agent and patient, respectively) in different kinds of actions. Rather than just seeing if kids can copy what they see, the task looks at whether they’re actually picking up on deeper patterns like who’s doing what to whom and whether they can apply that understanding to new situations. By comparing how they respond to simple one-character versus two-character actions, the study helps us learn more about how early kids start to grasp the structure behind everyday events, beyond the surface details.
A lot of my time in the lab is spent reaching out to families—emailing parents of kids who are eligible to participate in our study and letting them know what it’s about. One of the trickiest parts of research like this is actually getting families to come in! Even when kids are the perfect age range, coordinating schedules can be tough. After a long period of piloting (a test phase to fine-tune the study’s design and methods), we only began officially collecting data this March, so things are still very much in motion!
This experience has taught me how much thought and coordination go into running a developmental study. From recruiting families to adjusting study procedures and preparing for data analysis, there’s a lot that happens before results are even on the horizon. I’ve also learned how research questions evolve based on what’s actually feasible in a real-world setting. Being part of a collaborative team that’s constantly working through new challenges has helped me grow as both a student and an aspiring researcher.
