Bilingualism and the Brain in Education and Language (BABEL) Lab

Explore the BABEL Lab website!

Faculty Director: Genesis Arizmendi, PhD, CCC-SLP

Key Personnel: Lab Research Assistants

Location: SLHS Room 310

Research Focus: Work in the BABEL Lab aims to mitigate disparities and advance equity within the educational and healthcare systems. Dr. Arizmendi examines the intersection of cognition, language, and academic achievement in bilingual children with diverse learning profiles, spanning typical development, developmental language disorder, and difficulties with mathematics and reading. To better understand these relationships, research in the lab further explores the influence of policy and social context on educational outcomes.

Student Roles: Our research team is interdisciplinary and composed of highly motivated and committed undergraduate and graduate students across the university. These students, as the BABEL Lab Research Assistants, are involved in research at a variety of levels, including:

  • Assistance with data recruitment and data collection,
  • Processing and analyzing language samples on bilingual communication in young children and adults,
  • Developing and implementing lesson plans by developing presentations and activities for a high school curriculum based on SLHS and for VAMOSS (our department Spanish language club),
  • Examining teacher and parent surveys on their school/health experiences with their bilingually developing child, and
  • Gaining skills in research to public science communication on topics related to bilingual learning and development.

Student Representative: Melissa Romero melissar2@arizona.edu 

Currently accepting students? Waitlist, request application for next semester

Prerequisites: None

Preferred Qualifications: Spanish-English bilingual language skills (not required)

Image of two woman standing in front of their research poster smiling at the camera.
Image of 11 undergraduate students standing in a group on some stairs smiling at the camera.
Image of person standing in front of a group listening to a presentation.
Image of students sitting around a table.
Image of four people holding a t shirt up standing in front of a whiteboard smiling at the camera.

 

Image of four people standing outside behind a table on a sunny day.

 

Image of six young people standing in front of a slide presentation smiling at the camera.
line drawing of red three-story tower