Pronounsshe/her

Department/College/UnitSocial Sciences Division

TitleProfessor

AffiliationFaculty

Web SitePersonal

Primary Office LocationSocial Sciences 2
Room 257

Office Hours(Winter 2025) contact via email to schedule an appointment

Mail StopPsychology Faculty Services

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
B.S., M.S., National Taiwan University

Summary of Expertise

Learning in everyday context; cultural ways of learning; young children's use of technology; parent-child interaction; infant cognition; causal reasoning; spatial learning

Research Interests

Su-hua Wang’s research investigates cognitive development situated in sociocultural contexts, including technology, parent-child interaction, and children’s play.

She studies children’s use of interactive technologies to see how it affects communication and children’s development. For example, in a current project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF 1617253), she  collaborates with researchers in Computer Science and Computational Media to study how interactive technologies facilitate cleft speech therapy; they do so by considering the development of language and communication skills and the role of individual differences.

Her research on parent-child interaction shows that when attempting to teach their babies, parents provide the type of guidance that is supported by their unique cultural values and beliefs. These cultural variations in parental guidance underscore the importance of considering diverse approaches and activities in studying or supporting young children's learning.

She also continues her research program on infant cognition. This work shows that infants under a year of age can learn a new concept through watching just a few examples, and that hands-on experience reduces the amount of examples needed. Furthermore, infants transfer their learning across different modalities, from visual perception to hands-on action, and vice versa.

Selected Publications

Antrilli, N. K., & Wang, S. (2023). Tangible and digital materials for spatial play: Exploring the effects on parental talk and children's spatial reasoning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 54, 642-661. doi: 10.1111/bjet.13269.

Duh, S., Goldman, E. J., & Wang, S. (2023). The role of intentionality in infants’ prediction of helping and hindering. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24, 105-128. doi: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2124259

Basch, S., Covarrubias, R., & Wang, S.-h. (2022). Minoritized students’ experiences with pandemic-era remote learning inform ways of expanding access. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000330

Wang, S., Lang, N., Bunch, G. C., Basch, S., McHugh, S. R., Huitzilopochtli, S., & Callanan, M. (2021). Dismantling persistent deficit narratives about the language and literacy of culturally and linguistically minoritized children and youth: Counter-possibilities. Frontiers in Education, 6, 1-19. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.641796

Zhang*, Y., Wang*, S., & Duh, S. (2021). Directive guidance as a cultural practice for learning in Chinese-heritage babies. Human Development. doi: 10.1159/000517081   *These authors contributed equally to this work.

Duh, S., & Wang, S. (2019). Infants detect patterns of choices despite counter evidence, but timing of inconsistency matters. Journal of Cognition and Development, 20, 96-106.

Duval, J., Segura, E., Goldman, E. J., Wang, S., & Kurniawan, S. (2019). Using connected learning design principles to further co-create a critical speech therapy game. Proceedings of the 2019 Connected Learning Summit, 31-38.

Goldman, E. J., & Wang, S. (2019). Comparison facilitates the use of height information by five-month-olds in containment events. Developmental Psychology, 55, 2475–2482.

Wang, S. (2019). Regularity detection and explanation-based learning jointly support learning about physical events in early infancy. Cognitive Psychology, 113, 1-26. PDF

Antrilli, N. K., & Wang, S. (2018). Toddlers on touchscreens: Immediate effects of gaming and physical activity on cognitive flexibility of 2.5-year-olds in the U.S. Journal of Children and Media, 12, 496-513. PDF

Duval, J., Rubin, Z., Goldman, E. J., Antrilli, N. K., Zhang, Y., Wang, S., & Kurniawan, S. (2017). Designing towards maximum motivation and engagement in an interactive speech therapy game. Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, 589–594. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3078072.3084329