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who i am
Hello! My name is Taylor (they/she), and I’m a linguist getting my PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, currently in the candidacy stage. I study sign language acquisition with a focus on disabled second language learners. I’m a second language learner of ASL and disabled myself, as well as a proud first-generation high school and college graduate. I’m passionate about communication and accessibility in all forms, and the science thereof.
Besides my research, I also participate in mentorship and advocacy for first-gen students. As someone born and raised in small-town rural Texas, I deeply care about opening science up to underrepresented communities.
When I’m not working, I’m usually hanging out with my dog (an Austin Pets Alive! rescue), playing Nintendo games, or reading fantasy.
what i’m doing
- Research:
- Visual Attention in Hearing Non-Signers with ADHD: As part of my dissertation project, I’ve designed a novel experiment which gauges visual attention while undergoing ASL and gestural (non-linguistic) processing. I’m interested in comparing participants with and without ADHD who have not been previously exposed to signed language. Analysis ongoing.
- Associative Language Learning and ADHD: The second experiment in my dissertation will use associative lexical learning tasks in both speech, sign, and fingerspelling. Again, I’m interested in comparing non-signers with and without ADHD here, but for this experiment, they will undergo an explicit language learning task.
- Interviews of ASL Instructors: I’ve had some interview data that I collected in collaboration with my advisor, Dr. Jenny Singleton, with ASL instructors regarding their experiences teaching disabled students. Once these interviews are transcribed from ASL into English and annotated, the analysis will be the first portion of my dissertation study.
- Teaching!
- I once again have the opportunity to serve as an Assistant Instructor for “Introduction to the Study of Language,” and I’m enjoying it just as much as I did the first time! As part of the course, I designed an activity where students complete a scaled-down version of a real-world psycholinguistic experiment. It’s easy, accessible, and takes only about an hour in class! Here is the link to the folder with the experimental task materials, which anyone is welcome to use (credit appreciated).
- Research: