Core Ladder Lab Team
Dr Fiona Kyle
Director of The Ladder Lab
Fiona is a chartered psychologist and a lecturer at DCAL, UCL. She also holds a visiting associate professorship at the Reading Research Center at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She specialises in developmental psychology and her research focuses on literacy, language and cognitive development in typical and atypical child populations.
She has a particular interest in how deaf children learn to read and spell and the cognitive correlates of reading success including speechreading, vocabulary and phonological skills. Fiona developed the Test of Child Speechreading (ToCS). She is also interested in computer assisted reading interventions (CARIs) for struggling readers and she has been involved with several adaptations of GraphoGame.
Prof. Ros Herman
Professor of Child Language and Deafness
Ros is a HCPC registered Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) and Professor of Child Language and Deafness at City, University of London. She has worked clinically with deaf clients of all ages. Her research interests are language development and assessment in British Sign Language (BSL), communication and literacy interventions in deaf and hearing children and adults.
She runs the Sign Language and Reading Assessment Clinic based at the Language & Communication Science Division’s on-site clinic, the Roberta Williams Centre, offering clinical assessments of deaf children and adults.
Dr Kathryn Mason
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Katie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the Preschool Language and Literacy project at the Ladder Lab. She is a chartered developmental psychologist focusing on cognitive and educational research. Her main research areas include the development of language, literacy and cognitive skills in deaf and hearing children, and the design and impact of school-based interventions.
Katie is particularly interested in how children acquire language, thinking, and problem solving skills (known as executive functions), and the underlying mechanisms that make some activities particularly effective in supporting these areas of children’s development.
Amy Hegedűs
Research Assistant
Amy is a researcher on the Understanding Reading Success Study at the Ladder Lab. A CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), she grew up in a deaf family and is experienced in supporting deaf young people in educational settings. Amy holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Nottingham and a Postgraduate Diploma in Evidence-Based Mental Health Interventions for the education setting.
In her role as a Research Assistant, Amy conducts language and literacy assessments with children, administering tests in both BSL and English. Her research interests include exploring how best we can support deaf children in education, as well as investigating the effects of language deprivation on deaf children’s development.
Collaborators
Prof. Penny Roy
Professor of Developmental Psychology
Penny is a chartered educational psychologist and a professor of developmental psychology at City, University of London. She has a particular interest in the effects of early experience and disadvantage on language, literacy and psychosocial development.
Penny began her career as a qualified teacher before qualifying as an Educational Psychologist at the Tavistock Centre. She has worked clinically with, amongst others, ‘looked after’ children and young people, and hearing and deaf clients of all ages with concerns about literacy. She has developed several published assessments of language and psychosocial skills including the Early Repetition Battery and the Early Social Perception
Dr Kate Rowley
Lecturer and DCAL Deputy Director
Kate is a psycholinguist and deputy director of the UCL Deafness, Cognition & Language Research Centre. Deaf herself and raised in a deaf family in Cornwall, she studied Deaf Studies at Bristol and Linguistics at UCL. She later completed a doctorate on deaf people’s reading and is now a Lecturer in Deafness, Cognition & Language at UCL, specialising in language and literacy development in deaf children.
Kate advocates for bilingual education and has developed training for professionals in deaf education, mental health, and audiology. She has led and collaborated on ESRC research projects on deaf children’s language and literacy. Actively engaged with deaf schools, she provides training on sign language and literacy development and serves as a governor for Hamilton Lodge.
Professor Nicola Botting
Professor of Developmental Disorders, Language & Communication Science at City St George’s London
Nikki is a language and communication scientist whose work focuses on language and psychological outcomes of children with low birth weight, autism spectrum disorder, developmental language disorder, and other developmental disabilities. She is a co-investigator on the Understanding Reading Success study.
Professor Jan Frijters
Professor at Brock University Canada
Jan is an applied developmental psychologist with a focus on learning difficulties, motivation, and intervention. He also has a passion for quantitative research methods, especially for techniques such as multilevel modelling, person-centred, and structural equation modelling approaches that can help sort out how developmental processes unfold over time and within specific learning contexts. Jan is a co-investigator on the Understanding Reading Success study.
Current Ladder Lab Students and Research Assistants
Syeda Hiba Majid
MSci Psychology student and temporary research assistant
Hiba Majid is a current MSci Psychology student at UCL. She completed her third-year project in the Ladder Lab investigating the relationship between early grammatical skills and later reading comprehension ability in children. Since then, she has been working as a part-time temporary research assistant in the lab and will shortly start a research placement with us.
Niya Alias
MSci student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Niya Alias is a current MSci Psychology and Language Sciences student at UCL. She completed her third-year dissertation in the Ladder Lab investigating developmental trajectories of phonological skills and vocabulary over the first two years of school. Niya will shortly start a fourth-year research placement in the lab.
Alice Burrows
MSci student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Alice Burrows is a current MSci Psychology and Language Sciences student at UCL. She completed her third-year dissertation in the Ladder Lab investigating the role of the home literacy environment (HLE) in later reading ability. Alice will shortly start a fourth-year research placement in the lab.
Bernadette Dillon
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Bernadette Dillon is currently an MSc Language Sciences student at UCL. She is conducting her MSc dissertation in the Ladder Lab exploring language profiles and categorising language environments for deaf children.
Eleanor Duerden
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Eleanor Duerden is currently completing her MSc dissertation in the Ladder Lab. Her dissertation is investigating changes in morphological knowledge in deaf and hearing children.
Olivia Weaver
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Olivia Weaver is currently completing an MSc in Language Sciences at UCL. She has joined the Ladder Lab for her dissertation, in which she is looking at changes in morphological knowledge in deaf and hearing children.
Katie Swift
MSc Student and Lab Manager (part-time)
Katie Swift is currently volunteering part time in the Ladder Lab as a lab manager. While completing her MSc in Psychological Sciences at UCL, she is conducting her dissertation in the Ladder Lab examining the relationship between morphology and reading in deaf and hearing children. Katie is a qualified teacher.
Bubbles Wong
MSci Psychology student and temporary research assistant
Bubbles Wong has been working as a part-time temporary research assistant in the Ladder Lab since completing her MSci in Psychology at UCL in 2026. She completed both her third-year dissertation and a research placement in the Ladder Lab investigating the relationship between executive functions and language ability in children.
Past Ladder Lab Researchers and Students
Yuet Chin Wong
BSc student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Yuet Chin (Alyssa) Wong completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2026. Her final-year project looked at the direction of the relationship between reading comprehension and executive functions in deaf and hearing children.
Kate Page
BSc student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Kate Page completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2026. She conducted her final-year project in the Ladder Lab exploring the relationship between preschool spoken language and later reading ability in deaf and hearing children. She is about to start teacher training.
Nysa Narula
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Nysa Narula completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2026. Her final-year dissertation examined executive functions and language ability in deaf and hearing children.
Xinpa Huang
BSc Psychology student
Xinpa Huang completed her final-year dissertation in the Ladder Lab while studying for her BSc in Psychology. She researched social-emotional health in deaf and hearing children.
Hilary Cheung
BSc Psychology student
Hilary Cheung completed her BSc in Psychology at UCL in 2026. Her final-year project looked at the direction of the relationship between reading comprehension and executive functions in deaf and hearing children.
Abbey Fraser
BSc Psychology Affiliate student
Abbey Fraser joined the Ladder Lab as a psychology affiliate student from the University of Western Australia (UWA). She completed a research project examining listening comprehension skills in children. She is now back studying Human Sciences at UWA.
Sharon Ting
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Sharon Ting completed her MSc in Language Sciences at UCL in 2025. She conducted her MSc dissertation in the Ladder Lab exploring the relationship between executive functions, language and reading ability in deaf and hearing children. She is now studying for a PhD at the University of Cambridge.
Maayan Carno
BSc Psychology student
Maayan Carno was a BSc Psychology student who completed her final-year dissertation in the Ladder Lab. She worked on a joint project investigating the relationship between executive functions and language ability in children (deaf and typically hearing).
Esther Kwong
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Esther Kwong completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL. Her final-year project looked at the relationship between executive functions and reading development in deaf and hearing children.
Melissa Hussain Khan
BSc Psychology student and research assistant
Melissa Hussain Khan was part of the Ladder Lab from 2023 to 2025. She completed her BSc project in the Ladder Lab in 2023 investigating the relationship between preschool home literacy and later reading and vocabulary knowledge in deaf and hearing children. She then returned to work for us in 2024 and 2025 as a temporary research assistant in the lab helping collect data in schools. She now works as a mental health support worker in schools.
Julia Batko
MSci Student – Psychology and Language Sciences and Research Assistant
Julia Batko completed her MSci in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2024. She conducted her third year project in the Ladder Lab investigating the relationship between preschool home literacy and later reading and vocabulary knowledge in deaf and hearing children. She then re-joined the lab again for a research placement in autumn 2023. She also worked as a temporary research assistant in the lab group in summer 2023 and Summer 2024. She is now working as a teaching assistant in a primary school.
Helena Illing
MSci Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Helena Illing completed her MSci in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2024. Her MSci project in the Ladder Lab examined the development of spoken language skills in deaf children over the first year of formal schooling. She has continued with her studies at UCL and she is currently training to be a Speech and Language Therapist.
Xinyu Yang
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Xinyu Yang undertook her final year project in the Ladder Lab exploring the relationship between preschool spoken language and emergent literacy skills in deaf and hearing children. She completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences in 2024.
Alexandria Choi
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Alexandria Choi completed her BSc Psychology and Language Sciences in 2024. She conducted a final year project to explore the relationship between preschool spoken language and emergent literacy skills in deaf and hearing children.
Gemma Harrison
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Gemma Harrison completed her BSc Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2024. She conducted her final year project in the Ladder Lab exploring the relationship between preschool spoken language and emergent literacy skills in deaf and hearing children. She is currently training to become a teacher.
Katharine O’Neill
MSc Student – Psychological Sciences
Katharine O’Neill completed her MSc in Language Sciences at UCL in 2023. Her project examined the role of the preschool home literacy environment in later emergent literacy skills and beginning reading after one year of formal schooling. She is currently interning in the Ladder Lab and extending her dissertation.
Marco Cangini
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Marco Cangini completed his MSc in Language Sciences at UCL in 2022. His project investigated the relationship between the home literacy environment and emergent literacy skills in deaf and hearing children. He is now completing a PhD at Cardiff University.
Indie Beedie
Research Assistant
Indie was a research assistant on the Preschool Language and Literacy project from 2019 to 2022. Indie is now an Education Projects Manager (APP & Monitoring) in the Central Education Office at Imperial College London.
Sherryn Alton
SALT/Researcher
Sherryn worked on the Reading and Language Interventions Project at the Ladder Lab from 2018-2019. Sherryn is a specialist speech and language therapist in deafness and hearing impairment.
Grace Carroll
BSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Grace Carroll completed her BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL in 2022. Her project investigated vocabulary errors made by deaf and hearing children. She then worked as a temporary research assistant in the Ladder Lab.
Hannah van Vijfeijken
BSc Student – Psychology
Hannah van Vijfeijken completed her BSc in Psychology at UCL in 2022. Her project investigated vocabulary errors made by deaf and hearing children. She then worked as a temporary research assistant in the Ladder Lab.
Olivia Paine
MSc Student – Psychological Sciences
Olivia Paine completed her MSc in Psychological Sciences at UCL in 2022. Her project investigated the relationship between the home literacy environment and emergent literacy skills in deaf and hearing children.
Celine Perthuisot
BSc Student – Psychology
Celine Perthuisot completed her BSc in Psychology at UCL in 2023. Her project investigated the relationship between preschool home literacy and later reading and vocabulary knowledge in deaf and hearing children. She then worked as a temporary research assistant in the Ladder Lab.
Rebecca Tao
MSc Student – Psychology and Language Sciences
Rebecca Tao completed her MSci project in the Ladder Lab in 2023. She investigated the effectiveness of the GAPS as a screener for language difficulties in preschool deaf and hearing children.
Jodie Dwolatzky
MSc Student – Language Sciences
Jodie Dwolatzky completed her MSc in Language Sciences at UCL in 2021. Her project investigated morphosyntax errors made by deaf and hearing children.
Visiting Academics and Visiting Students
Marta Ortiz-Gomez
Visiting PhD student
Marta was a visiting PhD student from the Individual Differences, Language and Cognition Lab at the University of Seville. Her PhD thesis is part of the project “Intervention in reading comprehension in students with deafness and cochlear implant”, funded by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad of Junta de Andalucía, within the Programa Operativo FEDER 2014-2020 (US-1264792). She visited the Ladder Lab from September to December 2021 and worked on a project investigating metacognition, executive function and reading comprehension in deaf and hearing adults
Previous Research Interns and Affiliate Students
Blue Rigby
Erin Lim
Natalia Cruz-Vespa
Angie Kwok
Lara Kovenklioglu
Melody Yu
The Ladder Lab 