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Gerald McRoberts
Gerald McRoberts
Haskins Laboratories
300 George Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Haskins Phone: (203) 865-6163, x210
Yale Phone: (203) 764-9353
Haskins Fax: (203) 865-8963

Regular Days at Haskins: Monday - Friday

CURRENT RESEARCH:
Language Development in Infants & Toddlers:
Speeh Perception, vocabulary development, memory development;
Babbling and early speech production;
The structure of the infant's language environment;
Literacy Development:
Reading readiness;
The transition to literacy.

EDUCATION:

B.A., University of Minnesota, 1977 (Major: Child Development).
M.A., University of Connecticut, 1989 (Child & Developmental Psychology).
Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1990 (Child & Developmental Psychology).
Dissertation Title: The role of fundamental frequency in signaling linguistic stress and affect: Evidence for a dissociation.

GRANTS:

2003-2008     Principal Investigator, "The Role of Verbal Repetition in Infants' Discovery of Language Structure."

2002-2007     Investigator, "Early Ontogeny of Attunement to the Language Environment," Catherine Best, Principal Investigator.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
2008 – Present Visiting Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT.
2009 – Present Senior Research Affiliate, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT.
2008 – Present Consultant, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine.
2006 – Present Yale Medical School Human Investigations Committee, Haskins Labs. Representative.
2005 – Present Associate Editor, New Ideas in Psychology.
2005 – 2006 Visiting Fellow, MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, AUS.
2004 – 2008    Senior Research Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, New
2004 – 2008 Visiting Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT.
1997 – 2004 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA.
1995 – 1997 Lecturer, Depts. of Psychology & Human Development, California State East Bay, Hayward, CA.
1990 – 1997     Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Dept. of Psychology,Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA./td>
1985 – 1989 Grad. Research Assistant, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT.
1981 – 1985 Grad. Research Assistant, Dept. of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
1978 – 1980 Psychometric Assistant, J. L. Pettis V.A. Hospital, Loma Linda, CA.
1975 –1977    Research Assistant, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

PUBLICATIONS:

McRoberts, G. W., McDonough, C. & Lakusta, L. (2009). The development of
infant speech preferences from 4- to 14-months of age. Infancy, 14, 162-194.
McRoberts, G. W. (2008). Speech Perception. In: M. Haith and J. Benson
(Eds.). Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development. New York, NY: Elsevier.
Lillard, A., Massaro, D., Vaish, A., Nishida, T., Ma, L., & McRoberts, G. W.
(2007). Mothers’ paralinguistic, linguistic, and behavioral signs of pretense with 15-,18-, and 24-month-olds. Infancy, 11, 1-30..
McRoberts, G. W. (2005). Vocalization. In: N. J. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
Human Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Best, C. T. & McRoberts, G. W. (2003; Invited Submission). Infant perception
of nonnative consonant contrasts that adults assimilate in different ways. Language & Speech Special Issue: Phonological Development, 46, 183-216.
Slaney, M. & McRoberts, G. W. (2003; Invited Submission). Baby Ears:
A recognition system for affective vocalizations. Speech Communications, 39(3-4), 367-384.
Best, C.T., McRoberts, G. W. & Goodell, E. (2001). American listeners’
perception of nonnative consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to English phonology. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109, 775-794.
Fernald, A., Pinto, J. P., Swingley, D., Weinberg, A. & McRoberts, G. W.
(2001).In: M. Tomasello Rapid gains in speed of verbal processing by infants in the second year. In: M. Tomaselloand E. Bates (Eds.), Language Development: The Essential Readings. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers.
Fernald, A., McRoberts, G.W., & Swingley, D. (2001). Infants' developing
competence in recognizing and understanding words in fluent speech. In: J. Weissenborn (Ed.), Approaches to bootstrapping: Phonological, Lexical, Syntactic and Neurophysiological Aspects of Early Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Fernald, A., Pinto, J. P., Swingley, D., Weinberg, A. & McRoberts, G. W.
(2001). Rapid gains in speed of verbal processing by infants in the second year. Psychological Science, 9, 228-231.
Slaney, M. & McRoberts, G. W. (1998). Baby Ears: A recognition system for
affective vocalizations. Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.
Pinto, J. P., Fernald, A., McRoberts, G. W. & Cole, S. (1998). Reliability and
validity in infant auditory preference procedures. In Rovee-Collier, Lipsitt, & Hayes, (Eds.), Advances in Infancy Research.Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
McRoberts, G. W. & Best, C. T. (1997). Accommodation of mean Fo in
mother-infant and father- infant social interactions: A longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 27, 1-18.
Swingley, D., Fernald, A., McRoberts, G. W., & Pinto, J.P. (1996.) Prosody,
functors, and word recognition in young children. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
McRoberts, G. W., Studdert-Kennedy, M. & Shankweiler, D. (1995).The role of
fundamental frequency in signaling linguistic stress and affect: Evidence for a dissociation. Perception and Psychophysics, 57, 159-174.
Fernald, A. & McRoberts, G. W. (1995). Prosodic bootstrapping: A critical
analysis of the argument and the evidence. In: J. L. Morgan & C. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to Syntax: Bootstrapping from Speech to Syntax in Early Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., LaFluer, R., & Silver-Isenstadt, J. (1995).
Divergent developmental patterns in infants’ perception of two non-native consonant contrasts. Infant Behavior & Development, 19, 339-350.
McRoberts, G. W. & Sanders, B. (1992). Sex differences in performance and
hemispheric organization for a non-verbal auditory task. Perception and Psychophysics, 51(2), 118-122.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Sithole, N. T. (1988). Examination of
language-specific influences in infants’ discrimination of prosodic categories. Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.
Fowler, C. A., Best, C. T., & McRoberts, G. W. (1990). Young infants'
perception of liquid co-articulatory influences on following stop consonants. Perception and Psychophysics, 48 (6), 559-570.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Sithole, N. T. (1988). Examination of
perceptual reorganization for non-native speech contrasts: Zulu click discrimination by English-speaking adults and infants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 345-360.
Yonas, A., Bechtold, A., Frankel, D., Gordon, G., McRoberts, G. W.,
Norcia, A., & Sternfels, S. (1977). The development of sensitivity to information for impending collision. Perception & Psychophysics, 21, 97-104.