Nijmegen, Netherlands

Baby & Child Research Center: Development from Pregnancy to Preschool

Babies and young children are amazing: Born seemingly helpless, they reach important cognitive and linguistic milestones within the first years of life and transform into totally different creatures. How can this be? In recent decades, the field of infant studies has made great progress when it comes to understanding these impressive developmental changes. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that the first years of life have a long-lasting impact on cognitive and psychosocial outcomes: Our experiences in early childhood shape our subsequent health and brain development.
This course will bring together basic developmental research and its practical applications.

In the first part of the course, experienced instructors with a background in early childhood research and its theoretical and methodological intricacies will equip participants with state-of-the-art knowledge in developmental psychobiology, social-cognitive development and language development. This more theoretical part of the course will be complemented by digital lab tours of the different labs of the Baby & Child Research Center (BRC) and demos of various research tools (such as eye-tracking, EEG, motion tracking and fNIRS).

In the second part, participants will use their knowledge to tackle questions at the intersection of theory and practice. Novel insights from basic research into the early years can help practitioners and policymakers make decisions that help children grow up to be happy and healthy. However, the translation from research to practice is not always easy. Basic research often focuses on specific, narrow questions, while practitioners tend to look at the bigger picture. This part of the course is highly interactive and hands-on: Under the guidance of our instructors, small groups (“think tanks”) of participants will develop their own applied research project. Each think tank choses a topic of interest, reviews relevant literature, and develops advice for practitioners based on research findings. The week-long course will culminate in a mini-symposium where each think tank presents their work to the group.

This course is for you if you have a background in psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, educational science or an adjacent field and an interest in developmental research beyond the ivory tower. You will gain a deeper understanding of current topics in developmental science and their relation to the challenges practitioners and policymakers face.

Course leader

Prof. Dr. Sabine Hunnius
Donders Center for Cognition
Radboud University

Target group

Master
PhD

This course is designed for Master’s and PhD students from a variety of disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, educational science, and adjacent fields. Participants should be interested in applying findings from developmental research to real-world settings.

Course aim

After this course you will be able to:

1. Participate in discussions on state-of-the art research in early development
2. Translate findings from basic developmental research to applied practical settings
3. Present your own ideas to larger audiences

Fee info

EUR 295: This fee includes the registration fees, course materials, access to library and IT facilities, coffee/tea, lunch and a number of social activities.