Janet Bang, PhD

Janet Bang

Assistant Professor, Child & Adolescent Development

Janet Bang’s research focuses on how children learn language from their everyday interactions. Her work includes families from a variety of diverse backgrounds such as English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking families, as well as families with typically-developing children and children with developmental disorders. Through her research and teaching she strives to build an understanding of child development that is true to the rich array of individual and cultural differences within and across diverse communities. She is dedicated to using her research to empower families and educators with new insights into how to support children’s development.

Education

  • Ph.D., Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University
  • B.S., Psychobiology, University of California, Los Angeles

Recent Publications

  • Bang, J., Sharda, M., & Nadig, A. (2020). Towards greater transparency in Neurodevelopmental Disorders research: Propensity scores to facilitate selection of matched groups. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 12(1), 1-15.
  • Bang, J. & Nadig, A. (2020). An investigation of word learning in the presence of gaze: Evidence from school-age children with typical development or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Cognitive Development, 54, 100847. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100847

  • Cychosz, M., Romeo, R., Soderstrom, M., Scaff, C., Ganek, H., Cristia, A., Casillas, M., de Barbaro, K., Bang, J., & Weisleder, A. (2020). Longform recordings of everyday life: Ethics for best practices. Behavior Research Methods, 1-19.
  • Bang, J., Adiao, A., Marchman, V., & Feldman, H. (2019). Language nutrition for language health in children with disorders: A scoping review. Pediatric Research, doi: 10.1038/s41390-019-0551-0
  • Marchman, V., Bermudez, V., Bang, J., & Fernald, A. (2019). Off to a good start: Early Spanish-language processing efficiency supports Spanish- and English-language outcomes at 4 ½ years in sequential bilinguals. Developmental Science, e12973.

Recent Presentations

  • Bang, J., Kachergis, G., Weisleder, A., Marchman, V.  (2021, November). An automated classifier for child-directed speech from LENA recordings. Talk presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Virtual Presentation.

  • Bang, J., Munévar, M., Mora, A., Marchman, V., & Fernald, A.  (2021, July). Caregiver-child verbal engagement during everyday activities in English- and Spanish-speaking families. Talk presented at the International Association for the Study of Child Language, Virtual Presentation.

  • Gamboa, S., Bang, J., Fernald, A., & Marchman, V. (2021, July). The power of books: Recited vs. spontaneous talk during naturally-occurring book-sharing episodes in a socioeconomically-diverse sample of English-speaking two-year-olds. Poster presented at the International Association for the Study of Child Language, Virtual Presentation.

  • Mora, A., Bang, J., Segura, N., Fernald, A., & Marchman, V. (2021, April). Language use during naturalistic caregiver-child interactions in 6-year-old Spanish-English sequential bilinguals. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, Virtual Presentation.

  • Ramírez, J., Bohn, M., Bang, J., Marchman, V., & Fernald, A. (2020, June). The role of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in children’s later language processing: Data from Latino families in the US. Poster presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies, Virtual Presentation.

Noteworthy Grants and Awards

  • Postdoctoral Support Award, Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (2019 - 2020)
  • McGill MedStar Award (2016)
  • Strategic Training Fellow in Autism Research, Autism Research Training Program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2013 - 2016)

Online Resources

Areas of Research Interest

  • Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Bilingualism
  • Child Development
  • Community Engagement
  • Language Development
  • Language Input
  • Word Learning

Recommended Reading

Personality Playlist

Listen to Janet's playlist below and access all of the personality playlists on our Lurie College of Education Spotify account