Collaborative PhD grant awarded to give children a better start in education
Together with Hasselt University, colleagues from Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics (SBE) and Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (FPN) have been awarded a new four-year PhD grant by the Flemish Special Research Fund (Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds, BOF). Focusing on the development of language and reading skills in young children, the project aims to develop tools to identify children who need additional support at an early stage and improve their educational opportunities.
The project brings together Barbara Belfi, Senior Researcher at SBE (ROA), Milene Bonte, Professor, and Melis Çetinçelik, Assistant Professor at FPN, and Mieke Goos, Assistant Professor, at Hasselt University. Colin van der Ende has been appointed as the PhD candidate who will carry out the research, combining expertise in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and educational sciences.
Starting primary school is a major step in a child’s educational journey. For many children, it also marks a sudden increase in the demands placed on their language, attention and ability to learn in a formal classroom setting.
But children do not all enter this new phase with the same level of language development and early literacy skills. Differences in language background, socioeconomic circumstances and previous experiences can contribute to these differences, potentially affecting children's learning and later educational development. In increasingly diverse kindergarten classrooms, this presents teachers with a growing challenge: how can they tell whether a child’s difficulties with early literacy skills stem primarily from limited exposure to the Dutch language, or reflect more fundamental difficulties in learning to read?
This research project aims to help teachers make these important distinctions by combining neurobehavioral measures of attention with playful, gamified learning tasks. Instead of focusing solely on what children already know, the researchers want to gain a better understanding of how they learn and how readily they acquire new information.
As Milene Bonte (FPN) explains, this distinction is key to predicting reading development: “We don't want to just look at what a child already knows or can do in that moment, but at how quickly they pick up new information.” By following primary school children in the Netherlands and Flanders, the researchers hope to understand whether these measures can help identify children who may benefit from additional support and early intervention.
Another important aspect of early reading development is the ability to distinguish spoken language from background noise. In busy classroom environments, children need to focus on relevant speech while filtering out competing sounds. The project will therefore also investigate how differences in this ability may relate to early reading development. Melis Çetinçelik (FPN) explains: “We want to understand how children process spoken language when there are other sounds around them, such as in a noisy classroom.”
Through this approach, the researchers hope to build a more complete picture of how attention, language processing and learning are related to early reading development. An important part of the project will be exploring how these insights can be applied in the classroom. Working with teachers, the research will investigate how a better understanding of children's learning processes can help teachers recognise individual needs and make more informed decisions about the support they provide.
For Mieke Goos (Hasselt University), whose research focuses on the educational pathways of young children, a key question is how teachers can use these new insights when making decisions about children's learning needs and educational trajectories. “Teachers draw on their own observations and assessments when deciding whether a child needs additional support. We want to understand how new information about children's learning and attention can complement this knowledge and help teachers make better-informed decisions about their educational development.”
The project brings together complementary expertise across Maastricht University and Hasselt University. Maastricht University’s SBE will contribute expertise in education and skills development, while FPN will bring knowledge of language development and cognitive neuroscience. Hasselt University will add expertise in educational research and children's educational trajectories, as well as insight into the Flemish education system.
For PhD researcher Colin van der Ende, the ultimate goal is to ensure that the research makes a difference beyond academia. “I hope we can develop something that will benefit teachers and give us a better understanding of what it takes to translate findings from neuroscience into practical and useful applications in education.”
Commenting on the award, Barbara Belfi (ROA), whose research focuses on Education, Skills and Educational Transitions, said:
“In increasingly diverse classrooms, it is becoming more challenging for teachers to understand why some children struggle with early literacy skills. Yet reading is fundamental to acquiring new knowledge and skills throughout their education and beyond, enabling them to thrive in a rapidly changing world. By looking beyond what children already know to understand how they learn, we hope to help teachers identify different learning needs and provide the right support at the right time, giving every child a strong foundation for future learning.”