Dr Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, Research Leader of Oxford Brookes University

At Brookes BabyLab, we are looking for new participants to help us investigate how babies learn about the world around them.

Before infants are able to understand a word, they have to deal with a huge amount of information in order to learn the properties of their native language.

Among other skills, infants have to identify the relevant sounds of their native language to form a repertoire.

They also have to learn the rules governing those sounds; for example, which sounds can be combined and which ones cannot.

In parallel, infants have to discover what a word-like unit is and is not, and to associate all those possible word-like units to a particular meaning.

But, how are infants able to learn such a complex system?

Well at Oxford Brookes BabyLab we address this question every day.

To explore infants’ early language development, I use a method called “eye-tracker”; infants sit on their parent’s lap in front of a computer screen where they watch videos or sequences of pictures, and the amount of time spent looking at these is measured using an eye-tracker.

This is a special camera that uses infrared light to create a reflection on the child’s eye, and uses this reflection to compute exactly where the infant is looking.

Using this method, I’m currently investigating infants’ ability to learn new words.

Recent results have shown that words with more frequently occurring sound sequences in the language would be learned at an earlier age than words with less frequent sound combinations.

So for example words like “bat” are easier to learn than words like “tab”, because words starting with a “b” followed by a “t” are much more frequent than the opposite pattern.

We have had some positive feedback from people who have already brought their babies in to visit us.

Chloe, mum of a 16-month-old boy, said: “We have been twice now and it only makes me want to keep coming back.

“Both times it has been so easy to arrange to come at a time that suits me.

“Everyone has been warm and welcoming and the little gift at the end for my son is a lovely touch.

“He still loves the book he got first time round, I would recommend the BabyLab to anyone.”

Hannah, another mum added: “We took part in this study because we think it’s important to support this type of research.

“My son seemed to quite enjoy himself and when he had had enough, we stopped.”

If you want to help Brookes BabyLab and be a part of the making of science, you can register your child (from 0 months to 5 years) to participate.

If you are interested in helping out, or have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact Brookes BabyLab team.

You can phone 01865 483676, email babylab@brookes.ac.uk, visit the website www.brookes.ac.uk/babylab or contact us on Facebook or Twitter (@BrookesBabyLab).