Program

 

08:00 – 08:45: Coffee and Registration

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08:45 – 09:00: Opening Remarks

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09:00 – 10:00: Plenary Address 1

Krista Byers-Heinlein, Concordia University – Chaired by Janet Werker, University of British Columbia

Talk Title: What bilingual babies reveal about how all children learn
Abstract: Bilingual children show remarkable variation—some become fluent in multiple languages while others struggle, despite seemingly similar circumstances. This puzzle illuminates a fundamental challenge in understanding how all children learn. Traditional approaches focus on isolated factors that correlate with developmental outcomes, ranging from age and exposure to family background and culture. Yet these correlations mask the underlying mechanisms that actually drive development. Here, I argue that systems thinking that considers dynamic interactions across system levels is crucial for understanding underlying mechanisms of learning and development. Drawing from experimental, parent-report, and sociolinguistic research on language acquisition in bilingual infants, I show how development emerges from the interplay between maturational factors and experience, and how developmental outcomes depend on alignment across individual, family, and societal levels. What bilingual babies teach us extends far beyond language: successful development in any domain requires understanding the complex web of interacting forces that shape children’s minds.

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10:00 – 10:30: Refreshment Break

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10:30 – 12:00: Plenary Symposium 1: Growing up multilingual: Contexts and mechanisms of language learning
Chaired by Andrei Cimpian, New York University

Presenters:

Viridiana Benitez, Arizona State University 

Talk Title: Towards a developmental systems framework for understanding multilingual experience

Abstract: It is estimated that the majority of children across the globe are exposed to multiple languages and have the potential for multilingual development. And yet, the idea that monolingualism is the norm and multilingualism is the exception remains pervasive in the field of language and cognitive development. In this talk, I will present research on word learning and book sharing in bilingual contexts, arguing that traditional perspectives in these domains do not fully account for the learning mechanisms and opportunities available in multilingual environments. I suggest that a developmental systems framework is necessary for understanding the multilingual experience and highlight how this framework can help reconstruct research for the benefit of multilingual learners.

 

Dina Castro, Boston University

Talk Title: Shifting paradigms in bilingual development research: The role of sociopolitical context and language ideologies

Abstract: Research on bilingual development has frequently treated language acquisition as a decontextualized cognitive process, often overlooking the external forces that shape a learner’s environment. It has focused heavily on cognitive architectures and linguistic proficiency, treating the bilingual experience as a monolithic phenomenon. This presentation argues for a necessary paradigm shift, moving beyond considering only psycholinguistic frameworks to incorporate the critical roles of sociopolitical contexts and language ideologies. We examine how systemic factors—such as educational policies, immigration discourse, and the racialization of language—directly influence linguistic trajectories and identity formation in bilingual children and discuss how language ideologies can either foster or hinder heritage language maintenance. The session highlights emerging research that utilizes socio-critical lenses to understand the bilingual experience as a situated practice. Ultimately, this presentation calls for a more holistic, ecologically valid approach to research that honors the complex interplay between the mind and the state.

 

Drew Weatherhead, Dalhousie Universtiy 

 Talk Title: Speaker race shapes bilingual infants’ expectations about speakers’ language knowledge

Abstract: Infants learn language in a vast hypothesis space: many signals are available, but not all cues are equally informative. Early in development, infants begin to prioritize information relevant to their native language(s), supporting efficient processing and rapid acquisition. At the same time, flexibility is critical in contexts involving variability, such as accented speech. Prior work suggests speaker identity—including race—can shape the mechanisms infants recruit during language learning. Here, we ask a more basic question: what assumptions do infants make about how many language systems a given speaker has access to? Previous work suggests monolingual infants may assume speakers are monolingual by default, whereas bilingual infants do not.

We introduced speaker race as a contextual cue and examined bilingual infants’ expectations about speakers’ language knowledge. After familiarization with a novel English-speaking speaker, bilingual infants looked longer when a racially familiar speaker spoke English and then produced an unfamiliar second language. However, they showed a different pattern when the speaker was from an unfamiliar race, suggesting that bilingual infants’ expectations about multilingualism are sensitive to social-group membership and familiarity.

 

Adriana Weisleder, Northwestern University

Talk Title: The social contexts of bilingual language learning 

Abstract: How does bilingual experience shape language development? Much research shows that bilingual children’s exposure to each language relates to growth in that language. However, less is known about how bilingual children experience each language across social contexts, and whether that matters for language development. Drawing on longitudinal studies with bilingual toddlers, as well as quantitative and qualitative research with caregivers, I will present evidence that variation in the social contexts of bilingual exposure explain variability in children’s language learning. Paying greater attention to the social dimensions of bilingual learning contexts will help us understand variability in bilingual children’s development as well as the mechanisms underlying language learning more generally.

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12:00 – 13:15: Lunch on own or Diversity Lunch (pre-registration required) or Industry Careers Panel

Learn more about the lunch workshops here

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13:15 – 14:30: Poster Session 1 & Exhibitors

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14:30 – 16:00: Parallel Sessions

Individual Papers – O1 – Social Understanding
Chair to be confirmed

O1.1    Children’s consideration of cost and emotion in social evaluation of helping behaviors
Yongyin Wu ¹, Baoqi Guo ¹, Xin (Alice) Zhao ¹
¹ East China Normal University

O1.2    Sages of cool: What children learn from popular kids
Katie Vasquez ¹, Alex Shaw ¹
¹ University of Chicago

O1.3    Seeds of mistrust: How inequality shapes children’s trust and prosociality
Yuhang Shu ¹, Amrisha Vaish ¹
¹ University of Virginia

O1.4    Infants’ sensitivity to sartorial signals of group membership
Lorraine Afflitto ¹, Lawrence Hirschfeld ¹
¹ New School for Social Research

O1.5    The nature of social group preferences in infancy
Yiyi Wang ¹, Marc Colomer ¹, Hyesung Grace Hwang ², Jennifer Huo ¹, Caroline Groves ³, Courtney Filippi ⁴, Nathan Fox ⁵, Amanda Woodward ¹
¹ University of Chicago, ² University of California, Santa Cruz, ³ New York University, Langone, ⁴ New York University, ⁵ University of Maryland

 

Symposium S1.1: Making a time traveler: How children reason over uncertainty in the past and future

Chair(s): Urvi Maheshwari ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of California, San Diego
Discussant: Cristina Atance, University of Ottawa

 

Symposium S1.2: The interplay of language and cognition in the development of logical reasoning

Chair(s): Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti ¹, Chiara Saponaro ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Yale University, ² University of Milano-Bicocca
Discussant: David Barner, University of California, San Diego

 

Symposium S1.3: Drawing the moral circle:  How children engage with diverse and expanding moral responsibilities

Chair(s): Julia Marshall ¹, Fan Yang ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Brown University, ² University of Chicago

 

Symposium S1.4: Beyond the human informant:  How children evaluate and learn from AI, search engines, and voice assistants

Chair(s): Justin Ruiz ¹, Lauren Girouard ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Boston University, ² University of Michigan & Harvard University

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16:15 – 17:45: Parallel Sessions

Individual Papers – O2 – Expectations & Explanations
Chair to be confirmed

O2.1    Variability in children’s information seeking: Links to explanation quality, epistemic curiosity, and executive function
Yilin Liu ¹, Faith Crighton ¹, Junyi Chu ², Emily Liquin ³, Elizabeth Bonawitz ⁴, Candice Mills ¹
¹ University of Texas at Dallas, ² Stanford University, ³ University of New Hampshire, ⁴ Harvard University

O2.2    Infants’ exploratory drive increases for objects that repeatedly violate expectations
Di Liu ¹, Lisa Feigenson ¹
¹ Johns Hopkins University

O2.3    Calculating probabilities from simulated possibilities: Limitations in 4-year-olds
Brian Leahy ¹, Vicente Vivanco ¹, Samuel Cheyette ¹, Kevin Smith ¹, Josh Tenenbaum ¹, Laura Schulz ¹
¹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology

O2.4    “Did I really do that?!” Children’s surprise reveals well-calibrated expectations over action outcomes
Adani Abutto ¹, Hyowon Gweon ¹
¹ Stanford University

O2.5    Modal reasoning abilities emerge earlier and more unified than previously assumed
Leonie Baumann ¹, Lydia Schidelko ¹, Marina Proft ¹, Tanya Behne ¹, Johannes Rakoczy ¹
¹ University of Göttingen

 

Symposium S2.1: Children’s navigation of disagreement: From engagement to learning and resolution

Chair(s): Paul Harris ¹, Qianru Tiffany Yang ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Harvard University, ² Shanghai Jiao Tong University

 

Symposium S2.2: How do developing concepts of the natural world shape conservationist attitudes and behaviors?

Chair(s): Lizette Pizza  ¹, Emily Foster-Hanson ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Harvard University, ² Swarthmore College

 

Symposium S2.3:Prosocial backfiring: children’s understanding of when and why helping might be harmful

Chair(s): Kiera Parece ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ MIT

 

Symposium S2.4: Children’s responses to real-world inequality: Evidence across five continents

Chair(s): Eddie Brummelman ¹, Katherine McAuliffe ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of Amsterdam, ² Boston College

 

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17:45 – 19:00: Poster Session 2 & Exhibitors

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19:00 – 20:30: Celebrating John Flavell

Speakers: Lou Moses, Henry Wellman, Susan Gelman, Angeline Lillard, Kristin Lagattuta, Alison Gopnik (Discussant)

When John Flavell (1928-2025) got his Ph.D. (1955) there was no field of cognitive development. His seminal book “The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget” opened up Piaget to the English-speaking world and helped extend the cognitive revolution to developmental psychologists. Having opened the field, Flavell quickly contributed to it with his scholarship on the stage concept, mechanisms of cognitive change, sequences of development, and his connections-to-representations theory of cognitive development. And over his career he contributed his own voluminous research on metacognition, perspective taking, level-1 and level-2 understanding of perception, the appearance-reality distinction, consciousness, theory of mind, and more. Fittingly, Flavell won many awards and of note here he gave the CDS conference its inaugural keynote in 1999. The field of cognitive development would not be what it is today without John Flavell.

 

08:00 – 08:30: Coffee and Registration

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08:30 – 09:00: Announcements and Awards

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09:00 – 10:00: Plenary Address 2

Lisa Feigenson, Johns Hopkins University – Chaired by Melissa Kibbe, Boston University

Talk Title: The cradle of curiosity
Abstract: Curiosity underpins the greatest of human achievements, from exploring the reaches of our solar system to discovering the structure of our own minds. Where does this drive come from? Here I suggest that far from being reliant on language and sophisticated metacognitive skills, curiosity is present from our earliest days. In support of this claim, I discuss work showing that preverbal infants not only experience curiosity but harness it: when babies’ predictions fail to accord with their observations, they look longer, learn more, and produce exploratory behaviors. Critically, their exploration is guided by a desire to explain —long before they have the words to describe what they see, babies seek to understand why things happen as they do. In this sense, the curiosity that emerges in infancy lays the foundation for a lifetime of discovery.

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10:00 – 10:30: Refreshment Break

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10:30 – 12:00: Plenary Symposium 2: Children’s scientific reasoning
Chaired by Kristin Shutts, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Presenters:

Florencia Anggoro, College of the Holy Cross

 Talk Title: Supporting Relational Thinking in Science Learning

Abstract: To understand the scientific explanations of many natural world phenomena, children must engage in relational thinking—mapping the spatial, temporal, and causal relations between observations and their underlying causes. This is a significant challenge, especially for young children with little prior science knowledge. In this talk, I will discuss our approach to supporting children’s relational thinking within the context of an interactive museum exhibit and multi-player card games. By creating opportunities for comparison in these activities, we target cognitive challenges unique to different science domains: integration of perspectives (space science) and essentialist thinking (life science).

 

David Menendez, University of California, Santa Cruz

Talk Title: Children’s understanding of and learning about COVID-19

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the daily lives of people in the United States and around the globe. Although previous work had examined children’s understanding of illness, the pandemic sparked new work on how children think and learn about illness and viruses. I will present work on how 4- to 12-year-old children across different communities (particularly Black and Latinx communities and white rural conservative communities) in the United States think about illness and viruses. This work shows great commonalities across communities, with children grasping the observable aspects of viral transmission, but having difficulties with internal processes. I will then present how educational materials (e.g., books or videos) can help children learn about these processes.

 

Andrew Shtulman, Occidental College

Talk Title: Cognitive reflection facilitates children’s science learning and scientific reasoning

Abstract: What do cows drink? The correct answer is water, but you may have been tempted to say milk. The disposition to override an intuitive response (milk) with an analytic response (water) is known as cognitive reflection. I will present evidence that cognitive reflection is critical to the development of scientific cognition, both when learning counterintuitive scientific ideas and when reasoning about counterintuitive data. The ability to identify and override erroneous intuitions may be a prerequisite for acquiring scientific knowledge even at the earliest stages of science education.

 

Tal Waltzer, State University of New York at Albany & University of California, San Diego

Talk Title: Young people as climate learners and climate actors

Abstract: As the climate crisis intensifies, affecting today’s youth and future generations, developmental science has an unprecedented opportunity and responsibility to address questions at the intersection of cognitive development and climate change. This talk will highlight a few recent studies on how young people understand the climate crisis and how they can take action to address it. We identify key gaps, including misconceptions and an overwhelming focus on individual behaviors (e.g., recycling) rather than systemic or collective action (e.g., social mobilization). Notably, our findings also point to important sources of promise, including high levels of concern and a sense of self-efficacy. We explore the effects of interventions and offer examples of how youth can make lasting changes in their own communities. The talk will conclude with implications for developmental science and promising directions for future research on supporting youth climate learning and engagement.

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12:00 – 13:15: Lunch on own or Professoriate Lunch (pre-registration required)

Learn more about the lunch workshops here

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13:15 – 14:30: Poster Session 3 & Exhibitors

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14:30 – 16:00: Parallel Sessions

 

Individual Papers – O3 – Language, Learning, & Communication
Chair to be confirmed

O3.1    Comparing dogs and toddlers in multi-object point following
Madeline Pelgrim ¹, Ivy He ¹, Stefanie Tellex ¹, Daphna Buchsbaum ¹
¹ Brown University

O3.2    Language learning is social even if no one talks to you: Evidence of preferential observational word learning
Sarah Goodman ¹, Isha Rawal ², Ruthe Foushee ¹
¹ New School for Social Research, ² Arizona State University

O3.3    Preschoolers learn and use novel sociolinguistic associations to infer speaker meanings
Sophie Regan ¹, Mahesh Srinivasan ¹
¹ University of California, Berkeley

O3.4    What speakers don’t know: Children incorporate ignorance statements to learn words cross-situationally
Khuyen Le ¹, Martin Zettersten ¹, David Barner ¹
¹ University of California, San Diego

O3.5    Bootstrapping the mind: Syntax guides children’s learning of mental state verbs
Yuanyuan Chang ¹, Toben Mintz ¹
¹ University of Southern California

 

Symposium S3.1: Toward a comprehensive understanding of curiosity in childhood: Integrating neural, educational, and media perspectives

Chair(s): Hyunyoung Cho ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Boston College
Discussant:Jamie Jirout, University of Virginia

 

Symposium S3.2: Children’s developing understanding of the rights and responsibilities of collective decision-making

Chair(s): Mia Radovanovic ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of Toronto Mississauga

 

Symposium S3.3: “Did I do good?” How nuanced, everyday responses to children’s successes and failures shape beliefs about ability and motivation

Chair(s): Lena-Emilia Schenker ¹, Eddie Brummelman ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of Amsterdam

 

Symposium S3.4: Asymmetric, intimate, and protective: Children’s emerging theories of caregiving relationships

Chair(s): Melis Muradoglu ¹, Brandon Carrillo ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of California, Berkeley, ² Yale University
Discussant: Marjorie Rhodes, New York University

 

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16:15 – 17:45: Parallel Sessions

Individual Papers – O4 – Thinking and Reasoning
Chair to be confirmed

O4.1    Real-time processes underlying developmental changes in cognitive bias and decision stability during action planning
Arezoo Alford ¹, Tommaso Ghilardi ¹, Matthew Longo ¹, Ori Ossmy ¹
¹ Birkbeck University of London

O4.2    Training children’s spatial skills in social context
Nina Peleg ¹, Rebecca Gordon ², Andrew Tolmie ², Denis Mareschal ¹, Ori Ossmy ¹
¹ Birkbeck University of London, ² University College London

O4.3    The role of counting fluency in children’s later-greater knowledge
Stephen Ferrigno ¹, Sydney Buffonge ¹, Jasmine Kenny ², Michelle Hurst ³
¹ University of Wisconsin – Madison, ² University of Bath, ³ Rutgers University

O4.4    Reconciling two competing views on the process of generating explanations: rational inference vs. intuitive biases
Mert Kobas ¹, Andrei Cimpian ¹
¹ New York University

O4.5    Teaching by principle: How pedagogy can be harnessed to promote innovation
Fanxiao Qiu ¹, Jeanie Cox ², Andrew Shtulman ³, Henrike Moll ¹
¹ University of Southern California, ² University of California, Merced, ³ Occidental College

 

Symposium S4.1: Possibilities and probabilities: How do children think about (un)likely events?

Chair(s): Cate Maccoll ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of Queensland
Discussant:Jonathan Redshaw, University of Queensland

 

Symposium S4.2: Numerical foundations of human fairness: how numerical and proportional reasoning shape children’s moral development

Chair(s): Fernando Sanchez Hernandez ¹, Nadia Chernyak ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ² University of California, Irvine

 

Symposium S4.3: The development of children’s use of emotion and language as reciprocal learning signals

Chair(s): Mira Nencheva ¹, Christine Potter ²
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Stanford University, ² University of Texas at El Paso

 

Symposium S4.4: Why inequality persists: Children’s explanations across gender, wealth, and status

Chair(s): Jocelyn Dautel ¹, Emma Pitt ¹
Chair Affiliation(s): ¹ Queen’s University Belfast

 

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17:45 – 19:00: Poster Session 4 & Exhibitors

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