Publications

If you would like to read any of the articles below, please contact us by email (childresearch@uwaterloo.ca) and we would be happy to send you a copy.


Sosa-Hernandez, L., Aitken, C., Heintzman, S., Nilsen, E. S., & Henderson, H. A., (2023). Temperamental shyness and children’s communication in a goal-oriented task: A dyadic perspective. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 87, 101566. Link to article.

Lee, K. J., Davila, A., Cheng, H., Goh, J., Nilsen, E., & Law, E. (2023). “We need to do more ... I need to do more”: Augmenting Digital Media Consumption to Promote Compassion and Prosocial Attitudes and Behaviours via Critical Reflection. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23-28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany.  Augmenting Digital Media Consumption via Critical Reflection

Valcke, A., & Nilsen, E. S. (2022). The Influence of Context and Player Comments on Preschoolers’ Social and Partner-Directed Communicative Behavior. Journal of Cognition and Development, 1-27. Link to article.

Bacso, S. A., & Nilsen, E. S. (2022). Children’s use of verbal and nonverbal feedback during communicative repair: Associations with executive functioning and emotion knowledge. Cognitive Development63, 101199. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101199. Link to article.

Bowman-Smith, C. Sosa-Hernandez, L., & Nilsen, E. S., (2021). The other side of the screen: The impact of perspective-taking on adolescents’ online communication. Journal of Adolescence, 90, 46 - 56DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.08.006. Link to article.

Lee, K. J., Chauhan, A., Goh, J., Nilsen, E., Law, E. (2021). Curiosity Notebook: The design of a research platform for learning by teaching. In Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW (October 23-27, 2021), Article 394 (pp. 1-26). DOI: 10.1145/3479538 Link to article.

Ceha, J., Lee, K. J., Nilsen, E., Goh, J., & Law, E. (2021). Can a humorous conversational agent enhance learning experience and outcomes? In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21), May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 14 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3411764.3445068. Link to article.

Bacso, S., Nilsen, E. S., & Silva, J. (2021). How to turn that frown upside down: Children make use of a listener’s facial cues to detect and (attempt to) repair miscommunication. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 207. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105097. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Silva, J., McAuley, T. & Floto, S. (2020). Executive functioning moderates the associations between shyness and pragmatic language. Social Development. DOI: 10.1111/sode.12485. Link to article.

Gevaux, N., Nilsen, E. S., Bobocel, R., & Gault, S., (2020). Children’s reactions to inequality: Associations with empathy and parental teaching. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101189. Link to article.

Mewhort-Buist, T. A., Nilsen, E. S., & Bowman-Smith, C. K. (2020). Children's Communicative Decisions Are Influenced by Gender, Shyness, and Peer Experiences. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly66(1), 1-33. DOI: 10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.66.1.0001. Link to article.

White, K. S., Nilsen, E. S., Deglint, T., & Silva, J. (2019). That’s thee, uuh blicket! What do children learn from disfluent speakers? First Language.  DOI: /10.1177/0142723719873499. Link to article.

Varghese, A. & Nilsen, E. S., (2019).Is that how you should talk to her? Using appropriate prosody for listeners affects adults’, but not children’s, judgments of communicators’ competence.Journal of Language and Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X19871692. Link to article.

Gillis, R. L., Nilsen, E. S., & Gevaux, N. S. (2019). Children accept information from incongruent speakers when the context explains the communicative incongruence. Cognitive Development52, 100813. DOI:  10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100813. Link to article.

Mewhort-Buist, T. A., & Nilsen, E. S., (2019). Shy children’s understanding of irony: Better comprehension does not always mean better outcomes. Infant and Child Development, e2131. DOI: 10.1002/icd.2131. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Valcke, A., (2018). Children’s sharing with collaborators versus competitors: Relations with executive functioning and mentalizing ability. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 58, 38 - 48. DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2018.08.001. Link to article.

Lenton-Brym, A., Moscovitch, D., Vidovic, V., Nilsen, E. S., & Friedman, O. (2018).Theory of mind ability in high socially anxious individuals. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 31, 487 - 499. DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2018.1483021. Link to article.

Bacso, S. & Nilsen, E. S., (2017). What’s that you’re saying? Children with better executive functioning are more able to successfully produce and repair referential statements. Journal of Cognition and Development, 18(4), 441-464. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2017.1336438. Link to article.

Huyder, V., Nilsen, E., & Bacso, S. (2017). The relationship between children's executive functioning, theory of mind, and verbal skills with their own and others' behaviour in a cooperative context: Changes in relations from early to middle school-age. Infant and Child Development, 26(6), e2027DOI: 10.1002/icd.2027. Link to article.

Mewhort-Buist, T. A., & Nilsen, E. S. (2017). Shy individuals’ interpretations of counterfactual verbal irony. Metaphor and Symbol32(4), 262-275. DOI: 10.1080/10926488.2017.1384275. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Bacso, S. (2017). The cognitive and behavioural predictors of adolescents’ communicative perspective-taking and social competence. Adolescence, 56, 52-63. DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.01.004. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Rints, A., Ethier, N., & Moroz, S. (2016).  Mother-child communication style: The influence of executive functioning and ADHD symptomatology on paralinguistic style. Frontiers in Psychology7, Article 1203. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01203. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Huyder, V., McAuley, T., & Liebermann, D. (2016). Ratings of Everyday Executive Functioning: A parent-report measure of preschoolers’ executive functioning skills. Psychological Assessment, 29(1), 50. DOI: 10.1037/pas0000308. Link to article.

Varghese, A., & Nilsen, E. S., (2016). Guess who? Children use prosody to infer intended listeners. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 34, 306 – 312. DOI: 10.111/bjdp.12135. DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12135. Link to article.

Gillis, R., & Nilsen, E. S., (2017). Consistency between verbal and non-verbal affective cues: A clue to speaker credibility. Cognition and Emotion, 31(4), 645-65DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2016.1147422. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Varghese, A., Xu, Z., Fecica, A., (2015). Children with stronger executive functioning and fewer ADHD traits produce more effective referential statements. Cognitive Development, 36, 68-82. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.09.001. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Lizdek, I., & Ethier, N. (2015). Mother-child interpersonal dynamics: The influence of maternal and child ADHD symptoms. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 6(4), 313-329. DOI: 10.5127/jep.047015. Link to article.

Rints, A., McAuley, T. A., & Nilsen, E. S. (2014). Social communication is predicted by inhibitory ability and ADHD traits in preschool-age children: A mediation model. Journal of Attention Disorders, 19(10), 901-911. DOI: 10.1177/1087054714558873. Link to article.

Graham, S., Nilsen, E. S., Mah, J., Morison, S., MacLean, K., & Fisher, L., Brooks, B., Ames, E. (2014). Communicative interactions between children from Romanian orphanages and their adoptive mothers.Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 46, 9-19. DOI: 10.1037/a0033916. Link to article.

Gillis, R., & Nilsen, E. S., (2014). The role of cognitive flexibility in children’s ability to detect communicative ambiguity. First Language, 34, 58 – 71. DOI: 10.1037/a0033916. Link to article.

Glenwright, M., Parackel, J., Cheung, K., & Nilsen, E. S., (2014). Intonation influences how children and adults interpret sarcasm. Journal of Child Language, 41(2), 472-484. DOI: 10.1017/S0305000912000773. Link to article.

Varghese, A., & Nilsen, E. S., (2013). Incentives improve the clarity of school-age children’s referential statements. Cognitive Development, 28, 364 - 373. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.07.001. Link to article.

Neath, K., Nilsen, E.S., Gittovitch, K., Itier, R.J. (2013). Attention orienting by gaze and facial expressions across development. Emotion, 13, 397 - 408. DOI: 10.1037/a0030463. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Mangal, L., & MacDonald, K. (2013). Referential communication in children with ADHD: The role of a listener. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 590 - 603. DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2012/12-0013). Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Duong, D. (2013). Depressive symptoms and perspective-taking within a communicative context. Cognition & Emotion, 27, 335 - 344. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2012.708648. Link to article.

Gillis, R., & Nilsen, E. S., (2013). Children’s use of information quality to establish speaker preferences. Developmental Psychology. 49, 480 – 490. DOI: 10.1037/a0029479.  Link to article.

Mewhort-Buist, T. A., & Nilsen, E. S., (2013). What are you reallysaying? Associations between shyness and verbal irony comprehension. Infant and Child Development, 22, 180 - 197. DOI: 10.1002/icd.1769. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Mewhort-Buist, T., Gillis, R., & Fugelsang, J. (2013). Communicative perspective-taking performance of adults with ADHDsymptoms. Journal of Attention Disorders, 17, 589 - 597. DOI: 10.1177/1087054711428947. Link to article.

Huyder, V., & Nilsen, E., S., (2012). A dyadic data analysis of executive functioning and children’s socially competent behaviours. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33, 197 - 208. DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2012.05.002. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Graham, S. A. (2012). The development of preschoolers’ appreciation of communicative ambiguity. Child Development, 83, 1400 – 1415. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01762. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Mangal, L., (2012). Which is important for preschoolers’ production and repair of statements: What the listener knows or what the listener says? Journal of Child Language, 39, 1121-1134DOI: 10.1017/S0305000911000432. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Fecica, A. (2011). A model of communicative perspective-taking for typical and atypical populations of children. Developmental Review, 31, 55 – 78. DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2011.07.001. Link to article.

Graham, S. A., Nilsen, E. S., Friesen, C. K., & Johnson, J. (2011). Examining the role of attention and intention in two-year-olds’ acquisition of novel words. Enfance, 3, 311 - 328. DOI: 10.4074/S0013754511003041. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Glenwright, M., & Huyder, V. (2011). Children and adults understand that verbal irony interpretation depends on listener knowledge. Journal of Cognition and Development, 12, 374 – 409. DOI:10.1080/15248372.2010.544693. Link to article.

Graham, S., Nilsen, E. S., Collins, S., & Olineck, K. (2010). The role of gaze direction and mutual exclusivity in guiding 24-month-olds’ word learning. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 449-465. DOI: 10.1348/026151009X424565. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Graham, S., & Pettigrew, T. (2009). Preschoolers’ word mappings: The interplay between labelling context and quality of speaker attention.  Journal of Child Language, 36, 673-684. DOI: 10.1017/S0305000908009021. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Graham, S. (2009). The relations between children’s communicative perspective-taking and executive functioning. Cognitive Psychology, 58, 220-249DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2008.07.002. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., & Bourassa, D. (2008). Word learning performance in beginning readers. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62:2, 110-116DOI: 10.1037/1196-1961.62.2.110. Link to article.

Nilsen, E. S., Graham, S., Smith, S., & Chambers, C. (2008). Preschoolers’ sensitivity to referential ambiguity: Evidence for a dissociation between implicit understanding and explicit behavior.Developmental Science, 11:4, 556-562. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00701. Link to article.