Maureen A. Callanan
Papers
2
Total Citations
21
H-Index
2
About
Maureen A. Callanan is a leading developmental psychologist whose research illuminates how children learn through everyday conversations and interactions with parents, particularly in the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Her work uniquely bridges cognitive development and sociocultural theory, exploring how parent-child dialogue shapes children's understanding of complex concepts like animacy, causality, and the natural-versus-artificial divide. In her highly cited 2018 paper, "How Conversations with Parents May Help Children Learn to Separate the Sheep from the Goats (and the Robots)" (15 citations), Callanan demonstrates that the nuances of parental language—such as how they discuss living things versus robots—profoundly influence children's categorization and reasoning. Her 2021 study, "Unusual artifacts: Linking parents' STEM background and children's animacy judgments to parent–child play with robots" (6 citations), extends this by showing that a parent's own STEM expertise shapes how they interact with robots during play, which in turn affects children's judgments of whether robots are alive. Callanan's work has significant implications for early STEM education and parent-child learning, revealing that the most powerful lessons often emerge not from formal instruction, but from the rich, spontaneous conversations of everyday life.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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