BabyLab: who we are

The BabyLab is the lab of Developmental Psychology of the University G. d’Annunzio Chieti – Pescara, Italy.

Heads of the lab are Prof. Mirco Fasolo, Dr. Maria Spinelli and Dr. Francesca Lionetti. Our team is composed by several members, research assistants, Post-Docs, PhD students, Master students, interns, and we have many international partnerships.

At the BabyLab we study infants and children linguistic, communicative, socio-emotional development in typical and atypical populations. We explore how individual and environmental factors interact in contributing to developmental trajectories in a longitudinal perspective. Research at BabyLab involves the use of observational measures, laboratory assessments, questionnaire, interviews, and the analyses of neural and physiological factors.

Research areas and projects

Research: The parent-infant relationship

The parent-child relationship has a key role in children’s development. Our aim is to investigate its behavioural correlates, and associated neural and physiological components.

Research: Environmental sensitivity

Environmental Sensitivity is an individual trait that plays a key a role in children’s adjustment to the environment. We are working to develop measures for investigating individual differences in sensitivity starting from the first months of life.

Research: Preterm Birth

Since several years we have been following up preterm children and their parents from birth to school age, to promote and support a positive socio-emotional and language development