Learning was child’s play for psychology graduate Emma

Learning was child's play for psychology graduate Emma. Emma Craig, who graduates today (Tuesday 9 July) with a first-class degree in Psychology, investigated language development in children with developmental psychologist Dr Jessica Horst in the WORD Lab. Emma's final-year project involved testing 30-month-old toddlers by showing them a group of different objects of the same colour, asking them to identify one of the objects and then testing again with a new set of objects to see if they had learned to associate one particular object with its name. Emma's project showed that children learn names for objects better when they see objects together in the same colour and are also better able to extend the name to new examples of the same object. Emma, 22, from Crays Pond, Berkshire, says: "I loved working in the WORD Lab because you can see children learning right in front of you. I also love the fact that at Sussex our lecturers are researchers in their various fields, which means they have a genuine interest in what they are teaching you about. Getting to be part of that research process in my third year project was especially cool and I feel really lucky that I got to work with a respected author in the field of developmental psychology." Emma, who is the first member of her family to go to university, also managed to win a place studying for a term at the State University of New York.