My main area of research specialization is children's narratives. I have conducted several studies exploring children's underlying knowledge of narrative production and comprehension, as well as the effects of the way stories are presented to children on their subsequent telling or retelling of the stories. With colleagues Rita Dubé and Denyse Hayward, I have developed an instrument to provide local norms for story development, the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI). The ENNI is being used by researchers and clinicians around the world to investigate children's storytelling in a number of languages. Currently I am exploring the use of the ENNI to compare children's oral and written storytelling.  More information and links to publications are available on the ENNI website: www.rehabresearch.ualberta.ca/enni.

Before retirement, I taught courses in the department on language development, language assessment, literacy, and research design. My approach to teaching is to combine lectures with hands-on involvement with the material.  In language courses, this generally means analysis of transcripts of children's communication.