Join us on February 11th from 15:00 – 16:00 for our next Colloquium. You can join on campus (DT 2203) or Zoom https://carleton-ca.zoom.us/j/96979364539
Follow this link for a complete listing of our Colloquia for Winter 2026.
How Marin Made Number: A Case Study of a Toddler’s Bilingual Number Word Learning
With Dr. Rebecca Merkley
Parents’ records of their infants’ language development and behaviour changes over time, known as ‘baby diaries’, were common in early cognitive development research. Piaget famously based his seminal work on observations of his own children. We conducted a diary study of the development of my daughter, Marin’s, English and French number word usage between 18 and 49 months. Data sources include diary entries of observations, video recordings of some instances of number word usage, and several structured, standard cognitive development assessments administered by trained graduate students. Marin accurately used number words to denote exact quantities in informal settings earlier than she was able to demonstrate reliable performance on standard assessments.
In this talk, Rebecca will discuss how this project has influenced some of our recent research in the Math Lab, and show several cute videos of my kid.
Bio: Rebecca Merkley is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She studies early childhood cognitive development and education, with a focus on mathematics learning.
