Evan Kidd

Evan Kidd is a Professor of Linguistics at The Australian National University.

Evan trained as a psycholinguist (La Trobe University), and across his career has conducted research on children’s language acquisition and language processing, primarily on issues relating to morphosyntax in both monolingual and bilingual contexts. He also works on socio-cognitive processes underlying early language development (e.g., symbolic play, joint attention, gesture). Much of his research takes an explicit cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approach.

Research area/theme

Ontogeny, Culture and Socialisation – lead

Media coverage

• ABC show Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds wins International Emmy, The Guardian, 24 Nov 2020

Outreach

• Language acquisition in crosslinguistic context: How can we increase language coverage?, ILARA Round-table, 6 May 2021

Relevant publications

Book Chapters

Kidd, E., Bidgood, A., Donnelly, S., Durrant, S., Peter, M. & Rowland, C. (2020). Individual differences in first language acquisition and their theoretical implications. In Rowland, C., Theakston, A., Ambridge, B. & Twomey, K. 2020. ed. Current perspectives on child language acquisition. pp. 189-219. https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.27

Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., & Kidd, E. (2014). Language and culture. In T. M. Holtgraves (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology (pp. 46-61). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles

Kidd, E. & Garcia, R. (2022). How diverse is child language acquisition research?. First Language. https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211066405

Perfors, A. and Kidd, E. 2022. The Role of Stimulus-Specific Perceptual Fluency in Statistical Learning. Cogn Sci, vol.46, no.2, pp. e13100-. https://doi:10.1111/cogs.13100

Donnelly, S. & Kidd, E. 2021. The Longitudinal Relationship Between Conversational Turn-Taking and Vocabulary Growth in Early Language Development. Child Development. 0(0): 1-17. 10.1111/cdev.13511

Garcia, R. & Kidd, E. 2020. The Acquisition of the Tagalog Symmetrical Voice System: Evidence from Structural Priming. Language Learning and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2020.1814780

Kidd, E., Arciuli, J., Christiansen, M. H., Isbilen, E., Revius, K., & Smithson, M. (2020). Measuring children’s auditory statistical learning via serial recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104964

Kidd, E., & Donnelly, S. (2020). Individual differences in first language acquisition. Annual Review of Linguistics, 6, 319-340. doi:10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030326.

Yang, W., Chan, A., Chang, F., & Kidd, E. (2020). Four-year-old Mandarin-speaking children’s online comprehension of relative clauses. Cognition, 196: 104103. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104103.

Cattani, A., Floccia, C., Kidd, E., Pettenati, P., Onofrio, D., & Volterra, V. (2019). Gestures and words in naming: Evidence from cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison. Language Learning, 69, 709-746. doi:10.1111/lang.12346.

McKone, E., Wan, L., Pidcock, M., Crookes, K., Reynolds, K., Dawel, A., Kidd, E., & Fiorentini, C. (2019). A critical period for faces: Other-race face recognition is   improved by childhood but not adult social contact. Scientific Reports, 9: 12820. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-49202-0.

Quinn, S., & Kidd, E. (2019). Symbolic play promotes non‐verbal communicative exchange in infant–caregiver dyads. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 37, 33-50. doi:10.1111/bjdp.12251.

Kidd, E., Donnelly, S., & Christiansen, M. H. (2018). Individual differences in language acquisition and processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 154-169. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2017.11.006.

Quinn, S., Donnelly, S., & Kidd, E. (2018). The relationship between symbolic play and language acquisition: A meta-analytic review. Developmental Review, 49, 121-135. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2018.05.005.

Travis, C. E., Cacoullos, R. T., & Kidd, E. (2017). Cross-language priming: A view from   bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 283-298. doi:10.1017/S1366728915000127.

Kidd, E., Kemp, N., Kashima, E. S., & Quinn, S. (2016). Language, culture, and group membership: An investigation into the social effects of colloquial Australian English. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 47, 713-733. doi:10.1177/0022022116638175.

Ambridge, B., Kidd, E., Rowland, C. F., & Theakston, A. L. (2015). The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 42, 239-273. doi:10.1017/S030500091400049X.

Kelly, B. F., Kidd, E., & Wigglesworth, G. (2015). Indigenous children’s language: Acquisition, preservation and evolution of language in minority contexts. First Language, 35, 279-285. doi:10.1177/0142723715618056.