Job responsibilities
Gary leads the BSc Psychology year two Statistics and Research Methods module and the MSc Psychology Statistics module. He also teaches on modules related to his research interests in language acquisition and language impairments by co-teaching on Language and Literacy Development in Children (year three) and Understanding Atypical Development (postgraduate). Gary is also Associate Program Leader for the BSc Psychology with Criminology/Sociology/Sports Science degrees.
Research Centre or Group
Gary is part of the Learning, Memory and Cognition (LMC) Research Group and is Head of the Specific Language Impairment Research Unit (SLIRU).
Current projects
Current projects:
- Examining word recognition in children, with particular emphasis on the role of neighbourhood
- Understanding lexical and phonological acquisition
Past projects:
- Investigating the cognitive deficits that underlie Specific Language Impairment (2008-2010; research funded by a grant of £101,053 awarded to Jones by The Leverhulme Trust).
Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is a common developmental disorder that affects around 7% of the population. One central feature of SLI is an impairment in non-word repetition, a task requiring children to repeat nonsense words that vary along a number of dimensions. The above project successfully achieved two main aims:
- to examine the non-word repetition performance of typically-developing children and children with specific language impairment, in particular the types of repetition error made by the children
- to further develop EPAM-VOC, a computational model of vocabulary learning, to examine the patterns of impairment that are required to simulate the repetition performance of children with SLI.
Information for prospective research students
Gary's primary research areas involve experimental study and he has particular expertise in relation to cognitive and developmental psychology. He is happy to discuss potential projects in most areas of developmental and cognitive psychology but his eyes will light up if you have a potential project that examines language acquisition or language impairments, as these are his key areas of research.
Information for prospective clients
Gary began his study of Psychology at the University of Nottingham where he completed a BSc in Artificial Intelligence and Psychology. He subsequently completed a PhD examining Child Development at the University of Nottingham under the guidance of Dr Frank Ritter and Professor David Wood. After obtaining his doctorate he worked in a post-doctoral position examining language development with Professor Julian Pine and Professor Fernand Gobet. He then obtained a lectureship at the University of Derby before commencing at Nottingham Trent University in 2006.
