The Developmental and Educational Science Group

Our research group investigates investigates the development of psychological process from infancy to adolescence. We use our research to inform our scientific understanding of development, and to support the application of concepts from developmental science to the real-world (e.g. in schools).

The Developmental and Educational Science Group (DES) conducts scientific research into the development of cognitive, perceptual, social and emotional processes from infancy into childhood and adolescence. Group members focus on how concepts from developmental science can be applied to further the healthy development of individuals from typical and atypical populations.

Visit individual staff web pages to learn more about specific research interests, recent papers, grants and awards.

Research Highlights

Books

• Addyman, Caspar (2020) The Laughing Baby: The Extraordinary Science Behind What Makes Babies Happy. Unbound Publishing. ISBN 9781783527960
• Gregory, Alice M (2018) Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781472946157
• Gregory, Alice M. and Kirkpatrick, Christy (2019) The Sleepy Pebble and Other Bedtime Stories. London: Flying Eye Books. ISBN 9781911171812
• Kovas, Yulia and Selita, Fatos (2022)  Oedipus Rex in the Genomic Era. Human Behaviour, Law and Society. Palgrave Macmillan.  ISBN 978-1-349-96048-4
• Nery, Miguel, Neto, Carlos, Rosado, Antonio and Smith, Peter K (2020) Bullying in Youth Sports Training – New Perspectives and Practical Strategies. Routledge. ISBN 9781315101705

Articles

• Madrid-Valero, J. J., Ronald, A., Shakeshaft, N., Schofield, K., Malancini, M. and Gregory, A. M. (2020) Sleep quality, insomnia, and internalizing difficulties in adolescents: insights from a twin study. Sleep 43(2): zsz229.
• Mercure, Evelyne ; Evans, S.; Pirazzoli, L.; Goldberg, L.; Bowden-Howl, H.; Coulson-Thaker, K.; Beedie, I.; Lloyd-Fox, S.; Johnson, M.H. and MacSweeney, M. 2020. Language experience impacts brain activation for spoken and signed language in infancy: Insights from unimodal and bimodal bilinguals. Neurobiology of Language, 1(1), 9-32.
• Satchell, L. P., Fido, D., Harper, C. A., Shaw, H., Davidson, B., Ellis, D. A., Hart, C. M., Jalil, R., Bartoli, A. J., Kaye, L. K., Lancaster, G. L. J. and Pavetich, M. (2020) Development of an Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ): Are most people really social addicts? Behavior Research Methods, 53: 1097-1106.
• Smith, P. K. and Berkkun, F. (2020) How prevalent is contextual information in research on school bullying? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 61(1): 17-21.
• Toivainen, T., Madrid-Valero, J., Chapman, R., McMillan, A., Oliver, B. O. and Kovas, Y. (2021) Creative expressiveness in childhood writing predicts educational achievement beyond motivation and intelligence: A longitudinal, genetically informed study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, e12423.

Research Grants/Fellowships

• Alice Gregory was a Co-Investigator on a project funded by Wellcome Trust to explore people’s attitudes towards the physical experience of touch.
• Alice Gregory has received funding to supervise a PhD student (Betul Rauf) focusing on sleep and paranormal beliefs.
• Yulia Kovas was the Principal Investigator of an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility grant.  The grant enabled the mobility between Goldsmiths and Tomsk State University of 60 undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff.
• Yulia Kovas was a Co-Investigator on the project, Regulation of genomic research and the use of its results. funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR).

Research Dissemination

• Addyman, C. (2021). 6 super powers we gained by being babies. Psychology Today.
• Jones Bartoli, A. (2020). Why we should all use peer learning. TES
• Alice Gregory has recently been interviewed by New York Times, Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian for her research expertise on sleep.
• Mercure, E. (2020) Coos and babbles: Language learning in ‘pre-verbal’ babies. Psychology Blog.
• Peter Smith has been a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Bullying.
• Teemu Toivainen & Yulia Kovas (2021): Creativity in education. Researching Education.