My academic research uses experiments, longitudinal, intervention, meta-analyses and cross-sectional methods to investigate diverse aspects of child and human development.
Our research on hands focuses on fine motor skills, which involve small controlled movements of the hands. We have found in countless studies that our manual dexterity relates subtly to aspects of language, mathematics, reading, and thinking. We have also now broadened this work to look at other aspects of the senses.
Much of this work I have done with my long time collaborator, Prof Heidrun Stoeger from the University of Regensburg. Dr Philipp Martzog has also been a good collaborator and influential on my thinking in this domain.
In an exciting new line of research, I have been involved in looking at what we experience in our “mind’s eye” with a particular focus on mental imagery. This work understands mental imagery as being linked to “imagination” – the skill at inwardly imitating what we experience through our many senses.
Our work has looked at the effects of screen-media on mental imagery, links between imagery and fine motor development, and now the condition of aphantasia.
Additionally, I am actively involved in reading and language research. This work seeks to understand how reading and language develop, interrelate, and tackles questions such as: when should children learn to read?
Key collaborators here have been Prof Wolfgang Lenhard, Prof Elaine Reese, Dr Schaughency, Prof Wolfgang Schneider and Dr Jan Lenhart.
This line of my work seeks to apply what I learn from HANDS and MIND to education.
Partly this entails reading and language approaches, such as free-story telling and elaborative story-sharing methods, methods for teaching reading, screen-media in educational settings, applying mental imagery to education, and the role of the body in learning.
Finally, I also write on alternative educational approaches, with a focus on Waldorf-Steiner education. The reason for this is that I find that this approach comes closest to radically applying principles of developmental psychology and the philosophy of the mind to the concrete problem of education.
HANDS | MIND | EDUCATION research 