I am a second year PhD student at Lancaster University conducting research on how young infants perceive various properties of language and where those are processed in the brain.

I also study the differences in perception between infants from monolingual and bilingual language backgrounds.

Over half of the children in the world are born into families that speak more than one language, yet most of the research on language acquisition has studied monolingual children.

Current research lacks information on how bilingual infants perceive speech compared to infants learning only one language.

Wouldn’t you think the bilingual brain might have some cognitive advantages as a result from managing multiple language systems? My research aims to answer this question.

I am writing to invite families with children to take part in my research. The study will be conducted at Lancaster Babylab (http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/babylab/), which is home to one of the most-established prominent Babylabs in Europe. All studies conducted at the Babylab are in accordance to Lancaster University’s ethical and safety guidelines.

At this stage of my research, I am seeking Chinese-speaking families with infants aged between nine-12 months to take part in my speech perception study. I can be reached at s.cheung@lancaster.ac.uk

Shirley M. Cheung

Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar

Department of Psychology

Lancaster University