Biography
I am a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, UK. I am currently working on the ICICLES project: a three-year longitudinal project exploring the impact of the pandemic on children’s language, educational and socioemotional skills (previously based at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research). I have previously worked on various projects investigating typical and atypical language development in childhood at the University of Leeds and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. My areas of interest include infant and child language and cognitive development, language delays and vocabulary interventions.
- Infant and child language development
- Late talkers
- Children born preterm
- Vocabulary interventions
- Developmental psychology
PhD in Psychology, 2020
University of Birmingham, UK
MSc in Developmental Disorders, 2014
Lancaster University, UK
Bachelor in Psychology, 2012
Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico
Experience
Teaching assistant in the following modules:
- Multisensory Development in Infancy and Childhood
- Social Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood
- Cognition in Infants and Children
Responsibilities included:
- Coordinating lab meetings
- Organising presentations of research conducted by staff and students
- Organising discussion sessions
- Preschool teacher for children between 3 to 4 years of age.
- English teacher for children between 3 to 5 years of age.
Publications
Journal Articles
Zuniga-Montanez, C., Lisauskaite, E., Hutchinson, J., Fricke, S. & Bowyer-Crane, C. (submited). Factors Shaping Children’s Language Skills in the First Year Post-Pandemic. Preprint link coming soon.
Zuniga-Montanez, C., Lisauskaite, E., Hutchinson, J., Fricke, S. & Bowyer-Crane, C. (under review). Risk and Protective Factors Affecting Children’s Socioemotional Skills in the First Year Post-Pandemic. Preprint available at https://osf.io/preprints/osf/jrvhq
Zuniga-Montanez, C, Davies, C., Ligoxygakis, L., Kascelan, D. & Gonzalez-Gomez, N. (under review). How did COVID-19 affect young children’s language environment and language development? A scoping review. Preprint available at https://osf.io/sdcf3
Zuniga-Montanez, C., Fricke, S., Lisauskaite, E., Hutchinson, J., & Bowyer-Crane, C. (under review). ‘Making sure that people are in a good place is draining, and nobody does that for me’: The pandemic and its ongoing impact on teachers and headteachers. Preprint available at https://osf.io/gfsnq
Zuniga-Montanez, C. & Krott, A. (2024). Late Talkers can generalise trained labels by object shape similarities, but not unfamiliar labels. Journal of Child Language. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000924000163
Davies, C., Ebbels, S., Nicoll, H., Syrett, K., White, S., Zuniga-Montanez,C. (2022) Supporting adjective learning by children with Developmental Language Disorder:Enhancing metalinguistic approaches. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders,1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12792
Davies, C., Syrett, K., Taylor, L., Wilkes, S. & Zuniga-Montanez, C. (2022). Supporting Adjective Learning Across the Curriculum by 5-7 year-olds: Insights from Psychological Research. Language and Linguistic Compass, 16(11). https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12476
Zuniga-Montanez, C., Kita, S., Aussems, S., & Krott, A. (2021). Beyond the Shape of Things: Infants Can Be Taught to Generalize Nouns by Objects’ Functions. Psychological Science, 32(7), 1073–1085. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621993107
Reports
Kitson, S., Runge, J., Stokes, L., Rostron, J., Aleynikova, E., Boshoff, J., Da Silva Marioni, L., Harvey, M., Stockland, K., Zuniga-Montanez, C. & Manzoni, C. (2023), Domestic Abuse and Schools: Evidence from the Supervision for Designated Safeguarding Leads Evaluation. What Works for Children’s Social Care. https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-report/supervising-designated-safeguarding-leads-dsls/
Stokes, L., Runge, J., Rostron, J., Dorsett, R., Boshoff, J., Da Silva Marioni, L., Zuniga-Montanez, C., Harvey, M., Stockland, K., Aleynikova, E., & Manzoni, C. (2023). Supervising Designated Safeguarding Leads in Primary Schools. What Works for Children’s Social Care. https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-report/supervising-designated-safeguarding-leads-dsls/
Stokes, L., Runge, J., Aleynikova, K., Rostron, J., Da Silva Marioni, L, Boshoff, J., Harvey, M., Stockland,K., Zuniga-Montanez, C. & Manzoni, C. (2023) Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) group supervision in secondary schools: Evaluation report. What Works for Children’s Social Care. https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-report/supervising-designated-safeguarding-leads-dsls/
Stokes, L., Runge, J., Stockland,K., Dorsett, R., Boshoff, J., Da Silva Marioni, L., Harvey, M., Aleynikova, K., Boshoff, J., Zuniga-Montanez, C. & Manzoni, C. (2023). Supervision of Designated Safeguarding Leads in Schools: Focus on Child Sexual Abuse. What Works for Children’s Social Care. https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-report/supervising-designated-safeguarding-leads-dsls/
Stokes, L., Runge, J., Rostron, J., Dorsett, R., Da Silva Marioni, L., Boshoff, J., Manzoni, C., Aleynikova, K., Harvey, M., Stockland,K., & Zuniga-Montanez, C. (2023) . Supervision of Designated Safeguarding Leads: Great Manchester Combined Authority. What Works for Children’s Social Care. https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-report/supervising-designated-safeguarding-leads-dsls/
