Barbora Skarabela
Biographic Data
| ID | 1498387 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Barbora Skarabela |
| GIVEN NAMES | Barbora |
| FAMILY NAME | Skarabela |
| SIGNATURE | SKARABELA B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9344-349X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Testing the relationship between preferences for infant-directed speech and vocabulary development
From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI d…
Learning dimensions of meaning
Connectives such as but are critical for building coherent discourse. They also express meanings that do not fit neatly into the standard distinction between semantics and implicated pragmatics. How do children acquire them? Corpus analyses indicate that children use these words in a sophisticated way by the early pre-school years, but a small number of experimental studies also suggest that children do not understand that but has a contrastive m…
Home garden use during Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of people's lives. Lockdown measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have been more stringent for those aged over 70, at highest risk for the disease. Here, we examine whether home garden usage is associated with self-reported mental and physical wellbeing in older adults, during COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland. This study analysed data from 171 individuals (mean age 84 ± 0.5 years) from the Lothian …
‘Clap your hands’ or ‘take your hands’? One-year-olds distinguish between frequent and infrequent multiword phrases
Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference
Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) as…
Change in Physical Activity, Sleep Quality, and Psychosocial Variables during Covid-19 Lockdown
(1) Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of older people. In this study, we examine changes in physical activity, sleep quality, and psychosocial variables among older people during COVID-19 lockdown. We build on cross-sectional studies on this topic by assessing change longitudinally. We also examined whether participant characteristics including demographic, cognitive, personality, and health variables wer…
Reduplication facilitates early word segmentation
This study explores the possibility that early word segmentation is aided by infants’ tendency to segment words with repeated syllables (‘reduplication’). Twenty-four nine-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing one novel reduplicated word and one novel non-reduplicated word. Their central fixation times in response to these as well as new reduplicated and non-reduplicated words introduced at test showed that familiarized reduplicat…
Two-year-olds but not younger children comprehend it in ambiguous contexts
Children use pronouns in their speech from the earliest word combinations. Yet, it is not clear from these early utterances whether they understand that pronouns are used as substitutes for nouns and entities in the discourse. The aim of this study was to examine whether young children understand the anaphoric function of pronouns, focusing on the interpretation of the pronoun it in English-speaking children at 1;6 and 2;0. We tested whether adul…
Joint attention helps explain why children omit new referents
Signs of early social cognition in children's syntax
Signs of early social cognition in children's syntax
Joint attention helps explain why children omit new referents
Two-year-olds but not younger children comprehend it in ambiguous contexts
Children use pronouns in their speech from the earliest word combinations. Yet, it is not clear from these early utterances whether they understand that pronouns are used as substitutes for nouns and entities in the discourse. The aim of this study was to examine whether young children understand the anaphoric function of pronouns, focusing on the interpretation of the pronoun it in English-speaking children at 1;6 and 2;0. We tested whether adul…
Reduplication facilitates early word segmentation
This study explores the possibility that early word segmentation is aided by infants’ tendency to segment words with repeated syllables (‘reduplication’). Twenty-four nine-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing one novel reduplicated word and one novel non-reduplicated word. Their central fixation times in response to these as well as new reduplicated and non-reduplicated words introduced at test showed that familiarized reduplicat…
Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference
Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) as…
Change in Physical Activity, Sleep Quality, and Psychosocial Variables during Covid-19 Lockdown
(1) Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of older people. In this study, we examine changes in physical activity, sleep quality, and psychosocial variables among older people during COVID-19 lockdown. We build on cross-sectional studies on this topic by assessing change longitudinally. We also examined whether participant characteristics including demographic, cognitive, personality, and health variables wer…
Home garden use during Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of people's lives. Lockdown measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have been more stringent for those aged over 70, at highest risk for the disease. Here, we examine whether home garden usage is associated with self-reported mental and physical wellbeing in older adults, during COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland. This study analysed data from 171 individuals (mean age 84 ± 0.5 years) from the Lothian …
‘Clap your hands’ or ‘take your hands’? One-year-olds distinguish between frequent and infrequent multiword phrases
Learning dimensions of meaning
Connectives such as but are critical for building coherent discourse. They also express meanings that do not fit neatly into the standard distinction between semantics and implicated pragmatics. How do children acquire them? Corpus analyses indicate that children use these words in a sophisticated way by the early pre-school years, but a small number of experimental studies also suggest that children do not understand that but has a contrastive m…
Testing the relationship between preferences for infant-directed speech and vocabulary development
From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI d…
Psychology (10 works) · Language Development and Disorders (8 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (6 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (5 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Communication (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Noun (3 works)