ICD conducts studies on many topics, including language, executive function, learning, parenting, and many more! Some studies are phone or mail surveys that you can do from home. Other studies send researchers to schools or homes. It's most common for researchers to ask families to visit the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. We provide free and convenient parking. Compensation varies by study.
Take a look below to see what our current research labs are working on!
Bioecology, Self-Regulation and Learning Lab
Faculty: Daniel Berry
Our research focuses on clarifying the processes—mind, brain and environment—through which children’s experiences with their parents, teachers, and peers shape their abilities to control their impulses, purposely maintain and shift their attention, and hold and manipulate information in mind. Broadly, this set of inter-related skills is referred to as "self-regulation."
Center for Early Education and Development
We help early educators, caregivers, practitioners, and programs achieve the best outcomes for the infants and young children they serve.
Chicago Longitudinal Study, Midwest Longitudinal Study
Faculty: Arthur Reynolds
The Chicago Longitudinal Study, which started in 1986, tracks the life-course development of 1,500 children who attended early childhood programs in inner-city Chicago, including the Child-Parent Center Program.
Child Wellbeing Research Group
Faculty: Canan Karatekin
The goal of our research group is to help alleviate the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which include moderately to severely stressful experiences such as abuse, neglect, exposure to domestic violence and neighborhood violence, peer victimization, and parental mental illness.
We examine the correlates and consequences of these experiences, and the factors that underlie and exacerbate their effects. We also seek to bridge the gap between academic research on interventions related to ACEs and actual practices on the ground.
Cognitive Development and Neuroimaging Lab
Faculty: Kathleen Thomas
Our laboratory seeks to examine stimulus and response factors that constrain learning at different ages and relate these cognitive changes to ongoing brain development.
Culture and Family Life Lab
Faculty: Gail Ferguson
Our lab is studying the impact of 21st Century globalization on cultural, developmental, and family processes such as acculturation, enculturation, and family health. We are working to better understand and promote the resilience of youth and parents who are engaging with cultures from afar using globalization avenues, whether those be new cultures or heritage cultures in which they do not reside.
Developmental Cognition and Neuroimaging Lab
Faculty: Damien Fair
Our work focuses on advancing the understanding of brain development in health and disease. We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers trying to understand basic principles of brain functioning across development (i.e. figure out how the brain works); learn about how neuropsychiatric and other brain-based disorders develop and progress over time; contribute to the prevention and treatment of brain-based disorders; and engage unrepresented communities in all aspects of academic medicine and research.
Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab
Faculty: Stephanie Carlson, Philip Zelazo
In our research, we examine the development and interaction of executive function and self-regulation, social understanding, and pretend play and symbolism in young children.
Early Language and Experience Lab
Faculty: Melissa Koenig
Our research seeks to understand the linguistic, cognitive, and cultural factors that support children’s learning from others. We study children’s testimonial learning in order to understand the range of ways in which people serve as a sources of knowledge, and how people’s actions and statements both support and inhibit children’s access to knowledge. Our work is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary. We currently employ experimental, bio-behavioral and eye-tracking methods, and we work with diverse child populations, both within and outside of the United States.
ELAB: The Elison Lab for Developmental Brain and Behavior Research
Faculty: Jed Elison
We examine the developmental processes that contribute to individual differences in social communication for infants and toddlers. Much of our work focuses on risk factors that may predict autism.
The Family Cognitive Affective Neurodevelopment (Fam CAN) Lab
Faculty: Sylia Wilson
The Fam CAN lab is interested in understanding the different processes that lead to the development of psychopathology. We focus in particular on major depression and substance abuse, two frequently co-morbid internalizing/externalizing disorders. Taking a lifetime developmental perspective, we hope to discover the underlying neural and behavioral processes that cause psychopathology.
Georgieff Laboratory in Development Nutritional Neuroscience
Faculty: Michael Georgieff
Our lab focuses on neonatal iron nutrition and metabolism and the developing brain, and specifically the hippocampus, which underlies recognition memory processing.
The Gunnar Laboratory for Developmental Psychobiology Research
Faculty: Megan Gunnar
My research group studies the impact of early adverse care on children's neurobehavioral development. We are particularly interested in how the activity of stress-responsive systems, including hormonal systems, help explain how experience "gets under the skin" to impact physical and mental health across the lifespan. Youth adopted from orphanages help us understand the impact of early adversity when followed by rearing in highly supportive environments. Currently we are exploring the role of puberty in recalibrating stress systems and neural development.
Harris Research and Policy Lab
Director: Elizabeth Carlson
The Harris Research and Policy Lab, in accordance with the Irving Harris Foundation Professional Development Network, aims to reduce inequities to improve the health, education, and wellbeing of young children and their families by focusing on supporting the early development of children and families at risk in Minnesota.
Language and Cognitive Development Laboratory
Faculty: Maria Sera
Our research focuses on the relation between language and cognitive development. Current projects focus on the role of language in categorization and conceptual development, and on second language learning by children and adults.
The Math and Numeracy Lab
Faculty: Michele Mazzocco
We focus on the role of cognitive development and function on problem solving behaviors. Our current projects involve identifying individual differences in the cognitive skills underlying mathematical thinking and math achievement.
Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation
Faculty: Glenn Roisman
The Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children began in 1975 and we recently completed an age 37 and age 39 year assessment of the sample examining physical health at midlife. We primarily focus on social relationship experiences: how people think about their experiences, risk and protective factors, and issues of continuity and change.
Project Competence Research on Risk and Resilience
Faculty: Ann Masten
We study the processes that may contribute to the development of competence in risky environments. We have a particular focus on the protective processes that help children overcome adversity in ordinary life or in extraordinary situations like war and trauma.
Relationships Research Lab
Faculty: Glenn Roisman
Our research focuses on the legacy of early relationship experiences as an organizing force in social, cognitive, and biological development across the lifespan. Our goal is to provide insight into the childhood experiences and resources that support healthy adjustment later in life.