About Us
The Preschool Language and Literacy Research Lab is a research laboratory dedicated to conducting high-quality empirical research on early language and literacy for at-risk children. Our research team is distinctly multi-disciplinary, bringing together individuals from diverse disciplines, including speech-language pathology, psychology, reading, special education, and elementary education. In the lab, we focus our efforts on answering questions for which answers will make direct and immediate contributions to educational and clinical practices with children and their families.
Our mission is threefold:
- To conduct high-quality research that furthers fundamental understanding of child development and early education and that answers important questions concerning the most effective approaches to early education, particularly in language and literacy.
- To provide a scholarly and collegial environment for research training for persons from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds, to include undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.
- To share our expertise and knowledge about child development and early education with persons in the field, including members of the local community, through training and collaboration.
The lab is directed by Laura Justice, Ph.D., at The Ohio State University. The lab has sub-contracted data-collection sites at The University of Toledo (Dr. Joan Kaderavek, joan.kaderavek@utoledo.edu) and The Unviersity of Virginia's Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (Ms. Amy Softka, aet4q@virginia.edu).