Center for Early Childhood Research

             at the University of Chicago

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Recent Publications

Current Studies

We are currently conducting several studies examining how infants perceive themselves and other objects, interpret other people’s actions, and understand language.  Our ongoing studies include:


Square Room Study

This study seeks to examine toddlers’ use of environmental information in order to locate hidden objects. We also look at how specific environmental cues (like shape, color, size) can be manipulated in order to affect performance.


Early Math Concepts in Infants

In the past 10 years, research has suggested that infants know a lot about number, but it is not clear whether it is really number or the amount of area that infants are sensitive

to.  Our research seeks to learn more about what 7 to 8 month-old infants know and understand about quantity.


Measurement Study

Children, from kindergarten through the end of elementary school, often have a difficult time when it comes to measuring length, area, and volume in unconventional ways.  Our research is examining what strategies children employ for different measurement tasks, and how these strategies change over time.


Gesture Study

The purpose of our Gesture Study is to examine the role that pointing gestures play in children's understanding of number. We are specifically interested in how the presence of pointing gesture in young children, who have a limited verbal understanding of number, may influence the understanding of number in nonverbal number tasks. We are studying “pointing gestures” in very young children because research has shown that pointing gesture enhances children's numerical ability (e.g. counting, simple numerical problems), but has not focused on very young children who have a difficulty in verbal understanding of number.


  1. • Huttenlocher, J. & Lourenco, S.F. (2007). Coding location in enclosed spaces: is geometry the principle? Developmental Science, 10(6), 741-746. PDF

  2. • Ehrlich, S. et al. (2006). The importance of gesture in children’s spatial reasoning.  Developmental Psychology, 42(6), 1259-1268. PDF

  3. • Lourenco, S.F. & Huttenlocher, J. (2006). How do young children determine location? Evidence from disorientation tasks. Cognition, 100, 511-529. PDF