Niels Dickson, UC Irvine language science graduate student, has received a $12,912 grant from the National Science Foundation for his doctoral dissertation research on how children learn language.

“Learning a language is hard. Yet, children who struggle with simple tasks, like tying their shoes or performing basic addition, manage to master it,” he says. “In this work, we hope to better understand how children learn language by implementing learning theories in computational cognitive models.”

These models allow researchers to replicate the learning conditions that children encounter – like memory limitations that children have or variability of speech across children from different backgrounds - to test whether proposed learning theories can explain the incredible success that children achieve, he says.

“By improving our understanding of child language learning, this research could lead to more effective teaching methods and interventions for children with language development challenges,” he adds.

Funding for his work began in March and will run through February 2027.