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Research Interests

I am interested in the cognitive and neural processes related to language development and language use. There are two broad themes to my current research. One focuses on cognitive and neural processes that enable the learning and use of multiple languages in bilinguals at different levels of proficiency. My students and I study developmental patterns of cross-language interaction and transfer related to lexical and morpho-syntactic processing, as well as neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in language-switching. We also study sign-speech bilinguals who use spatial and oral languages from two different modalities. The second research theme focuses on language development in school-aged children with typical or atypical development (including children with dyslexia or with specific language impairment, children who are deaf, and bilingual children from an ethnic minority background).

Recent Publications

van Hell, J. G., & Tokowicz, N. (in press). Event-related brain potentials and second language learning: Syntactic processing in late L2 learners at different L2 proficiency levels. Second Language Research.

van Beijsterveldt, L. M., & van Hell, J. G. (in press). Evaluative expression in deaf children’s written narratives. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders.

Kootstra, G. J., van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T. (2009). Two speakers, one dialogue: An interactive alignment perspective on code switching in bilingual speakers. In: L. Isurin, D. Winford, & K. de Bot (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching (pp. 129-159). Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

van Beijsterveldt, L. M., & van Hell, J. G. (2009). Structural priming of adjective-noun structures in hearing and deaf children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104 (2), 179-196.

van Hell, J. G., & Witteman, M. J. (2009). The neurocognition of switching between languages: A review of electrophysiological studies. In: L. Isurin, D. Winford, & K. de Bot (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching (pp. 53-84). Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

van Hell, J. G. & de Groot, A. M. B. (2008). Sentence context affects lexical decision and word translation. Acta Psychologica, 128, 431-451.

van Hell, J. G., Verhoeven, L., & van Beijsterveldt, L. M. (2008). Pause time patterns in writing narrative and expository texts by children and adults. Discourse Processes, 45, 406-427.

Bosman, A. M. T., van Hell, J. G., & Verhoeven, L. (2006). Learning the spelling of strange words in Dutch benefits from regularized reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 879-890.

van Hell, J. G., Verhoeven, L., Tak, M., & van Oosterhout, M. (2005). To take a stance: A developmental study on the use of pronouns and passives in spoken and written texts in different genres. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 239-273.

van Hell, J. G., Bosman, A. M. T., & Bartelings, M. (2003). Visual dictation improves the spelling performance of three groups of Dutch children with spelling disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 26, 239-255.

van Hell, J. G., Bosman, A. M. T., Wiggers, I., & Stoit, J. (2003). Children's cultural background knowledge and story telling performance. International Journal of Bilingualism, 7, 283-303.

van Hell, J. G. & Dijkstra, T. (2002). Foreign language knowledge can influence native language performance in exclusively native contexts. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 780-789.