B.A. (Hons) Tas, D.Phil. Oxon

Lecturer

Career Summary

I joined the School as a lecturer in July 2005, after post-doctoral research in Vancouver (Canada) on the early detection of language delay in at-risk children, and in Manchester (UK) on children’s early understanding of grammatical categories. My DPhil was at the University of Oxford, and focused on schoolchildren’s spelling development. My broad research areas are in developmental psychology and the psychology of language.

Research Interests

My research interests centre on the acquisition, development, and use of spoken and written language, from infancy to adulthood, as it occurs both typically and atypically. Current interests include literacy (especially spelling development in children and the use of spelling strategies in adults, both typical and with a specific reading disability), the developmental course of grammatical understanding (from pre-linguistic infants to adults) and early predictors of language delay (as part of a Vancouver-based longitudinal project).

Research Areas:

• Language and Literacy Lab  Read More

Teaching

My teaching focuses on child development and the psychology of language, and also extends to social psychology and health psychology.

Units

• KHA101 - Psychology 1A
  
• KHA102 - Psychology 1B
  
• KHA207 - Social Psychology
  
• KHA231 - Psychology of Language
  
• KHA307 - Social Psychology
  
• KHA331 - Psychology of Language
  

Selected Publications:

• Kemp, N., Nilsson, J., & Arciuli, J., 2009, 'Noun or verb? Adult readers’ sensitivity to spelling cues to grammatical category in word endings.', Reading and Writing, 22, pgs. 661-685
• Kemp, N. , 2009, 'The spelling of vowels in influenced by Australian and British English dialect differences.', Scientific Studies of Reading, 13, pgs. 53-72
• Kemp, N., Parrila, R., & Kirby, J., 2009, 'Phonological and orthographic spelling in high-functioning adult dyslexics. ', Dyslexia, 15, pgs. 105-128
• Kemp, N., 2008, 'The acquisition of spelling patterns: Early, late, or never?', Reading and Spelling: Contemporary Perspectives., Routledge., pgs. In Press
• Bernhardt, B.M., Kemp, N., & Werker, J.F, 2007, 'Early word-object associations and later language development', First Language, 27, pgs. 315-328
• Kemp, N., 2006, 'Children’s spelling of base, inflected, and derived words: Links with morphological awareness', Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 19, pgs. 737-765
• Kemp, N., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. , 2005, 'Young children’s knowledge of the determiner and adjective categories. ', Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,, 48, pgs. 592-609

Full Publication List

Current and Supervised Project/s:

• Efficiency of mobile phone texting and links to other skills
• Learning about facts and feelings from words vs. pictures
• Improving adult spelling through intervention
• Noun or verb? Identifying word classes from letter clues in reading
• Grammatical awareness and links to other skills