The University of Chicago
Department of Psychology
5848 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL, 60637
Office: Green 517
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Molly Flaherty
Background
Molly graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Psychology in 2004. After graduating she worked in Ann Senghas's lab studying Nicaraguan Sign Language for two years before completing a Master's Program in the Evolution of Language and Cognition at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She has been a PhD student in Susan Goldin-Meadow's lab since 2008.
Research Interests
Molly is interested in how languages are born and how a person's specific language affects (or does not affect) her thought. She is interested in investigating these questions by looking to users of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), a young Central American language. Because NSL is so young, it is the perfect place to study how languages emerge and evolve as their earliest users acquire and use them. Due to the wide range of ages at which Deaf Nicaraguans acquired NSL, Nicaragua is also an ideal place to ask what effects atypical language acquisition can have on cognition. Her current research seeks to compare NSL signers to homesigners, deaf individuals who do not have sign language, in order to learn how language grows at its birth, and how its users grow along with it.
Publications/Presentations
Flaherty, M., Senghas, A. (under review). Numerosity and Number Signs in Deaf Nicaraguan Adults.
Flaherty, M. (2010). Review of Sign Language Acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 37, 956-961.
Flaherty, M., Goldin-Meadow, S. Does Input Matter? Gesture and Homesign in Nicaragua, China, Turkey, and the USA. Paper presented at the Child Language Seminar, London, England. June 2010.
Flaherty, M., Özyürek, A., Goldin-Meadow, S. Does Input Matter? Gesture and Homesign in Nicaragua, China, Turkey, and the USA. Paper presented at the Eight Evolution of Language Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands. April 2010.
Flaherty, M., Senghas, A. Number and Number Signs in Nicaragua. Paper presented at the Alston Hall Child Language Conference, Preston, England. May 2008.
Flaherty, M., Kirby, S. Iterated Language Learning in Children. Paper presented at the Seventh Evolution of Language Conference, Barcelona, Spain. March 2008.
Flaherty, M., Senghas, A. Numerosity and Number Signs in Deaf Nicaraguan Adults. Presentation at Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA. November 2007.
Hurford, J. R., Flaherty, M., Argyropoulos, G. (2007). Past and Future, Human and Non-human, Semantic/Procedural and Episodic, Commentary on Suddendorf and Corballis: The Evolution of Foresight: What is Mental Time Travel and is it Unique to Humans? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 324-325.
