Language Acquisition Research and Exploration Lab (LAREL)

Our laboratory investigates language acquisition in typically developing children and children with communicative disorders (e.g. deaf and hard-of-hearing children, children with Autism Spectrum Disorder). Our long-term research goal is to understand how child linguistic environment affects the development of child language and/or social skills.

One particular focus of our lab research is the examination of interaction in caregiver-child dyads with mismatched hearing status. We examine linguistic (e.g. prosodic, lexical, pragmatic) characteristics vocal interaction between children with and without hearing loss and their caregivers (e.g. mothers, fathers and siblings). Recently, we extended this line of research to include the effect of modern technology (e.g. telepractice) on characteristics of pediatric patient-provider interaction.

Another focus of our laboratory in collaboration with Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI) is research on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) between children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and engineered, autonomous, facially-expressive, human-like robots that can assess and adapt to personalized therapeutic goals. Adaptive partner robots specifically targeting ASD hold the potential to revolutionize treatment and improve the lives and productivity of millions of Americans.

Dr. Kondaurova collaborates with the Heuser Hearing Research Center (HHRC) which is open to many of Louisville's top audiologists, researchers and scientists. The HHRC conducts, promotes and distributes research on human hearing and hearing loss. It is located on the 3rd floor of the Heuser Hearing Institute's hearing serves building in downtown Louisville and is home to dedicated research facilities including two double-walled sound booths and a sound-field testing room.