Dr Laura Shapiro

Research Interests

Reading Development

I am interested in the relationship between pre-school cognitive skills and instruction on early reading progress, and in particular, the relative importance of general auditory skills and specific speech skills in beginning and intermediate stages of reading. My main approach is to conduct longitudinal studies with large, heterogeneous samples of beginning readers in order to build models of the relationship between underlying skills and reading. I am fortunate to have received generous support for these projects. Previous work was supported by the ESRC and British Academy, in collaboration with Julia Carroll and Jonathan Solity. Current projects include:

The Aston Literacy Project, a four year ESRC funded project, with Research Fellow Anna Cunningham, PhD student Kate Swoboda and Co-Investigators Caroline Witton, Joel Talcott, Kim Rochelle and Adrian Burgess. See the ALP website for more details.

The Reading Comprehension Project, with Research Assistant Salma Kadiri and Co-Investigator Selma Babayiğit. Our aim is to examine which skills (e.g., vocabulary, grammar and memory) are most important for reading comprehension in children from diverse home language backgrounds. See the Reading Comprehension website for more details.

Categorisation

I am also interested in how children learn to categorise objects and how adults store and access this knowledge. This research is supported by an ESRC studentship to Julia Badger and a research grant from Twycross Zoo Education Department.

Ph.D Students

Kate Swoboda (commenced 2011): The influence of auditory and phonological deficits on reading development; Co-supervisor Caroline Witton . See Kate's website for more details.

Julia Badger (completed 2011): An investigation into children’s inductive reasoning strategies: What drives the development of category induction?

Jessica Gilbert (completed 2010): A systematic exploration of perceptual and semantic differences in category-specific object processing using MEG; Co-supervisor Gareth Barnes

Publications

[Click here] to link to papers available to download. Please contact me for other reprints.

• Badger, J.R., & Shapiro, L.R. (2012). Evidence of a transition from perceptual to category induction in three to nine year old children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113, 131-146.[Click here for downloadable publications]
• Gilbert, J.R., Shapiro, L. R. & Barnes, G. R. (2012). A Peak-Clustering Method for MEG Group Analysis to Minimise Artefacts Due to Smoothness. PLoS ONE 7(9): e45084. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0045084.
• Shapiro, L.R., Carroll, J.R., & Solity, J. (submitted). Separating the Influences of Pre-reading Skills on Early Word and Nonword Reading.Manuscript submitted for publication.
• Badger, J.R. & Shapiro, L.R. (2010). Development of reasoning: Behavioral evidence to support reinforcement over cognitive control accounts. Cognitive Neuroscience, 1 (2), 138-139. [Click here for downloadable publications]
• Shapiro, L.R., Hurry, J., Masterson, J., Wydell, T. & Doctor, E. (2009). Classroom Implications of Recent Research into Literacy Development: From Predictors to Assessment. Dyslexia, 15(1), 1-22 [download pdf]
• Shapiro, L.R. & Solity, J. (2008). Delivering Phonological and Phonics Training within Whole Class Teaching. The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78 (4), 597-620. [Click here for downloadable publications]
• Solity, J. & Shapiro, L.R. (2008). Developing the Practice of Educational Psychologists through Theory and Research. Education and Child Psychology, 25 (3), 119-145. [Click here for downloadable publications]
• Shapiro, L. R., Lamberts, K. & Olson, A. C. (2008). Measuring the influence of similarity on category-specific effects. The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20(2), 346-366. [download pdf]
• Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I.R.L. & Shapiro, L. R. (2006) Colour Categories and Category Acquisition in Himba and English. In N. Pitchford & C. Bingham (Eds.) Progress in Colour Studies, 159-172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [download pdf]
• Ellefson, M.R., Shapiro, L.R. & Chater, N. (2006). Asymmetrical switch costs in children. Cognitive Development, 21, 108-130. [download pdf]
• Shapiro, L. R. & Olson, A. C. (2005). Does normal processing provide evidence of specialised semantic subsystems? Language and Cognitive Processes, 20(6). [download pdf]
• Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I.R.L. & Shapiro, L.R. (2005). Color categories: Confirmation of the Relativity Hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 50, 378-411. [download pdf]
• Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Shapiro, L. (2004). The Development of Color Categories in Two Languages: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 554-571. [download pdf]
• Lamberts, K. & Shapiro, L. (2002). Exemplar models and category specific effects. In E. M. E. Forde and G. W. Humphreys (Eds.), Category-Specificity in Brain and Mind. Psychology Press. [download pdf]
• Roberson, D., Davidoff, J. & Shapiro, L. (2002). Squaring the circle: the cultural relativity of ‘good’ shape. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2(1), 33-93. [download pdf]