Beyond Words Ep. 25 | How Children Learn Words: Input, Context, and Generalization

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In this episode of Beyond Words, Garrett Oyama speaks with Dr. Catherine Sandhofer, professor of psychology at UCLA, about how children learn words, categories, and concepts through everyday experience.

They explore why word learning is not just about hearing words more often, but about when, where, and from whom children hear them. Dr. Sandhofer discusses how contextual variation, caregiver input, repeated routines, and shared book reading shape vocabulary growth and why children may need both consistency and variability at different points in development. They also discuss nouns and verbs in early language input, the role of forgetting and reactivation in learning, how screen-based language differs from human interaction, and what these findings might mean for speech therapy, parenting, AAC, and clinical practice.

Learn more about Dr. Catherine Sandhofer’s work - https://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty-page/csandhof/

Subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@GarrettBeyondWords

Beyond Words Ep. 24 | Gaze, Hands, and the Roots of Communication with Gedeon Deák, PhD

In this episode of Beyond Words, host Garrett Oyama, MS, CCC-SLP, is joined by UC San Diego professor Gedeon Deák, PhD, to explore how infants learn to share attention with others and why these early interactions are so important for communication and language development. Together, they unpack the evolving nature of joint attention, including gaze following, pointing, caregiver scaffolding, and the often-overlooked role of hands, movement, and object interaction in early learning.

Drawing from Dr. Deák’s research, this conversation challenges the idea of joint attention as a single developmental milestone. Instead, it highlights how infants gradually learn to coordinate attention through repeated, real-world interactions with caregivers, objects, and their environment. The discussion explores how babies learn to follow attention not simply by watching eyes, but through meaningful experiences that involve looking, reaching, pointing, and shared engagement with objects and routines.

🎙️ Topics include:

• a deeper understanding of how gesture, gaze, and movement
• support early communication development
• valuable perspectives for assessing and supporting young children
• social communication and language delays

Earn ASHA CEUs - https://www.speechtherapypd.com/courses/gaze-hands

Beyond Words Ep. 23 | Music, Voice, and Meaning: From Infant Speech to Social Signals with Greg Bryant, PhD

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In this episode of Beyond Words, Greg Bryant, PhD, joins host Garrett Oyama, MS, CCC-SLP, to explore how the human voice carries meaning through prosody, musicality, and nonverbal vocalizations.

Together, they examine how infant-directed speech uses exaggerated pitch, rhythm, and timing to capture attention and support early learning, and how these same acoustic patterns overlap with features found in music. Dr. Bryant connects infant communication, emotional vocal expression, and music within an evolutionary framework, highlighting how vocal behavior supports social bonding, coordination, and shared understanding.

🎙️ Topics include:

• How listeners interpret emotion, intention
• Social context from vocal cues alone
• Cross-cultural research
• Highlighting how vocal behavior supports social bonding
• Prosody, pragmatics, and culturally responsive care

Beyond Words Ep. 22 | Active Infant Learning: Curiosity and How Children Seek Words with Martin Zettersten, PhD

Get ASHA CEUs: Speech Therapy PD for this podcast

In this episode of Beyond Words, host Garrett Oyama, MS, CCC-SLP, welcomes Martin Zettersten, PhD, to explore how infants actively learn language through curiosity, attention, and everyday experiences. Dr. Zettersten shares insights from his work as Principal Investigator of the Language and Infant Learning (LIL) Lab at the University of California, San Diego, highlighting how children seek out and process information as they begin to build their early vocabularies.

Together, they break down how attention and learning interact in early word learning, and what that means for how infants begin to connect words with meaning.

🎙️ Topics include:

• How infants and children learn language
• Large collaborative projects and shared datasets
• Improve confidence in infant development findings
• Developmental evidence to inform the caregiver
• Guidance and early language support

Resources:

Agency and Cognitive Development (Oxford Series in Cognitive Development) by Michael Tomasello

Beyond Words Ep. 21 | Understanding Autistic Language Variability, Strengths, and Meaning with Rhiannon Luyster, PhD

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In this episode of Beyond Words, host Garrett Oyama, MS, CCC-SLP, sits down with researcher and clinician Rhiannon Luyster, PhD, to challenge some of the assumptions baked into how we assess and interpret autistic communication.

Dr. Luyster brings her research to life as she and Garrett explore why variability is not a problem to solve but a feature to understand. From the way caregivers naturally adapt their language in real interactions to how focused interests and unconventional word use can drive learning, this conversation reframes what “atypical” communication really means.

🎙️ Topics include:

• Sources of variability in language development among autistic individuals
• Unconventional language features (e.g., neologisms, focused interests)
• Meaningful linguistic systems
• Clinical implications for assessment and intervention
• Deficit-based models of autistic language

Beyond Words Ep. 20 | Neural Encoding of Speech: Insights from Aphasia with Dr. Jill Kries

In this episode of Beyond Words, Garrett Oyama speaks with Dr. Jill Kries, cognitive neuroscientist, about how the brain transforms sound into language—and what this reveals about aphasia. They explore how aphasia may involve disruptions not just at the level of words and grammar, but in lower-level speech processing, including phoneme perception and acoustic discrimination. From EEG studies using natural story listening to concepts like lexical entropy, this conversation reframes aphasia as a breakdown across the full speech processing hierarchy.

🎙️ Topics include:

• Low-level auditory and phoneme processing in aphasia

• Neural encoding of speech using EEG

• Lexical entropy and real-time language processing

• Implications for assessment and intervention

• Connections to dyslexia and statistical learning

Learn more about Dr. Jill's work: https://linktr.ee/jillkries

Get ASHA CEUs: https://www.speechtherapypd.com/courses/neural-encoding-of-speech

Beyond Words Ep. 19 | Comics and Visual Language with Dr. Neil Cohn

In this episode of Beyond Words, Garrett Oyama speaks with Dr. Neil Cohn, cognitive scientist and director of the Visual Language Lab, about how drawings and comics function as full-fledged visual languages.

They explore how visual narratives have structure, grammar, and vocabulary, and why understanding comics isn’t as automatic as we might assume. Dr. Cohn challenges the idea that language is purely speech-based, introducing a multimodal language faculty that includes vocal, bodily, and graphic expression.

Along the way, they connect language to drawing, gesture, writing systems, and even AI, offering a powerful reframe of what it means to communicate.

🎙️ Topics include:

• Comics as structured visual languages
• Multimodal language faculty (speech, gesture, drawing)
• How children learn visual narratives
• Why image-based tasks may be misleading in assessment
• Visual language and neurodevelopmental differences
• Implications for speech therapy and AAC

Learn more about Neil and purchase his books here: https://visuallanguagelab.com/

Get ASHA CEUs here: https://www.speechtherapypd.com/courses/comics-visual-language

Beyond Words Ep. 18 | Brain-to-Brain Synchrony and Attention in Early Development with Dr. Sam Wass

In this episode of Beyond Words, Garrett Oyama speaks with Dr. Sam Wass, developmental neuroscientist, about how attention, arousal, and social interaction shape the developing brain.

They explore how infants regulate attention in real time, how stress and environmental context influence learning, and what brain-to-brain synchrony between parents and children reveals about communication. They discuss neural entrainment, shared book reading, and the role of co-regulation in supporting language development. Along the way, they connect laboratory neuroscience to everyday parenting and clinical practice, reframing language learning as something deeply embedded in attention, physiology, and relationships.

Watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@GarrettBeyondWords

Get ASHA CEUs: https://www.speechtherapypd.com/courses/brain-to-brain-synchrony