Support Team

Patricia Makaure
PhD (Linguistics, Languages and Literature)
Postdoctoral Fellow: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Patricia’s research interests are in early child language and literacy development. Her areas of expertise include phonological processing and literacy development in monolingual and multilingual children. As part of her MA and PhD studies, she produced language and literacy assessment tests in Sepedi (Northern Sotho), one of South Africa’s official languages.Patricia also has a deep passion for Data Science and its application in child language development and acquisition.

Carmen Defty
MA (General Linguistics)
Research Coordinator: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Carmen’s MA focused on child-directed speech in low SES communities in Stellenbosch. Specifically, the input that Afrikaans infants in these communities receive from caregivers. Carmen is a research assistant for the project Understanding Language Input in Early Childhood in South Africa, looking at parent-infant interaction and the immersive language of the infant. She previously worked on the Genie Wiley: A case of atypical language acquisition research project. Carmen’s research interests include child language and development, language acquisition theories and caregiver-child interactions.

Chelsea Brönn
PhD candidate (General Linguistics), Stellenbosch University
Research Coordinator: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Chelsea’s research examines types of language socialization and patterns of interaction between caregivers and children in the home and daycare. Her study will allow us to identify the types of linguistics input and socialization practices that are associated with greater vocabulary sizes for males and females in early language acquisition in low-SES South African communities. This data can be used to identify the types of socialization practices that can be used to improve language outcomes of children in South Africa, and to inform culturally sensitive intervention programs for young children diagnosed with language delays.