Drew Weatherhead
Assistant Professor

Email: Drew.Weatherhead@dal.ca
Fax: 902-494-6585
Mailing Address:
- Language acquisition
- Sociolinguistics
- Social cognition
- Cognitive development
- Infancy
- Word Learning
*Dr. Weatherhead is泭not泭currently accepting Clinical PhD students
*Dr. Weatherhead will泭not泭be supervising Honours Students in the 2026-2027 academic year
*Dr. Weatherhead will泭紳棗喧泭be supervising Directed Research/Independent Project students in the 2026-2027 academic year
Education
COGS-P-BCH (Queens University)
PhD (University of Waterloo)
PDF (University of British Columbia)
Research Interests
Broadly, my research investigates mechanisms of early language acquisition. I study infants and young children using a variety of methods including eye-tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Much of my work is focused on sociolinguistic development. My lab is interested in how infants and children process accented speech, and how speaker characteristics such as race influence their perception.
Selected Publications
- Ryken, A., Tupper E.,泭Weatherhead, D.泭(2024). Learning linguistic diversity: Listeners have race based linguistic expectations, but only for phonological variation.泭Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.泭
- Weatherhead, D.,泭& Werker, J. F. (2022). 20montholds selectively generalize newly learned word meanings based on cues to linguistic community membership.泭Developmental Science.泭餃棗勳:泭
- Weatherhead, D.,泭& White, K. S. (2021).泭Toddlers link social and speech variation during word learning.泭Developmental Psychology,泭57(8), 1195. 餃棗勳:泭
- Weatherhead, D., Kandhadai, P., Hall, D. G., & Werker, J. F. (2021). Putting mutual exclusivity in context: Speaker race influences monolingual and bilingual infants wordlearning assumptions.泭Child Development, 92(5), 1735-1751.泭
- Weatherhead, D.,泭Nacar-Garcia, L., Arredondo, M.M.,泭& Werker, J.F. (2021). The role of audiovisual speech in fast-mapping and novel word retention in monolingual and bilingual 24-month-olds.泭Brain Sciences, 11(1), 114. 餃棗勳:泭
- Weatherhead, D.泭& White, K. S. (2018) And then I saw her race: Race-based expectations affects infants word processing.泭泭Cognition.泭177,泭87-97. 餃棗勳:泭
- Weatherhead, D., White, K. S., & Friedman, O. (2016). Where are you from? Preschoolers infer background from accent.泭Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,泭143, 171-178. 餃棗勳:泭