Dr Anna Weighall
School of Education
Co-Director for the MSc Psychology and Education
Reader in Education
School of Education Director of Ethics
+44 114 222 3633
Full contact details
School of Education
Edgar Allen House
241 Glossop Rd
Sheffield
S10 2GW
- Profile
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Dr Weighall is a cognitive developmental psychologist researching the relationships between sleep, memory and learning, spoken language development and vocabulary acquisition in children and adults.
- Qualifications
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DPhil Psychology, University of York
BSc (Hons) Psychology, University of York
- Research interests
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Anna's research interests are broadly concerned with sleep, memory, language learning and cognitive development in children and adults. She applies an experimental approach to understanding factors that contribute to memory and learning, especially vocabulary learning in adults, children and those who speak English as an additional language (EAL).
In addition, Anna is interested in the application of implementation science and behaviour change techniques to interventions to improve educational outcomes,. She is interested in the link between physical health and cognitive performance and the extent to which interventions to improve physical and mental health and wellbeing may also improve cognitive and educational outcomes for children, young people and their families.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Nap effects on preschool children’s learning of letter‐sound mappings. Child Development.
- Consolidation of vocabulary is associated with sleep in typically developing children, but not in children with dyslexia. Developmental Science, 21(5).
- A systematic review of cognitive function and psychosocial well-being in school-age children with narcolepsy. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 34, 82-93.
- Consolidation of vocabulary during sleep: The rich get richer?. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 77, 1-13.
- Eye-tracking the time‐course of novel word learning and lexical competition in adults and children. Brain and Language, 167, 13-27.
- Learning new vocabulary during childhood: Effects of semantic training on lexical consolidation and integration. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(3), 572-592.
- Online Lexical Competition During Spoken Word Recognition and Word Learning in Children and Adults. Child Development, 84(5), 1668-1685.
- Graphic imagery is not sufficient for increased attention to cigarette warnings: the role of text captions. Addiction, 108(4), 820-825.
- Consolidation of vocabulary is associated with sleep in children. Developmental Science, 15(5), 674-687.
- Enhanced recognition and recall of new words in 7- and 12-year-olds following a period of offline consolidation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112(1), 56-72.
- The role of working memory and contextual constraints in children's processing of relative clauses. Journal of Child Language, 38(3), 579-605.
- The kindergarten path effect revisited: Children’s use of context in processing structural ambiguities. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 99(2), 75-95.
- Managing controversy through consultation: A qualitative study of communication and trust around MMR vaccination decisions. British Journal of General Practice, 54(504), 520-525.
- When the daffodat flew to the intergalactic zoo: Off-line consolidation is critical for word learning from stories.. Developmental Psychology, 51(3), 406-417. View this article in WRRO
- Nap effects on preschool children’s learning of letter‐sound mappings. Child Development.
- Professional activities
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Within the School of Education Anna's work spans the Centre for Early Childhood Education and the Centre for the Study of Literacies
Anna is an executive committee member of the British Sleep Society; The European Society for Cognitive Psychology and the Experimental Psychology Society, and a member of the European Society for Sleep Research.
She regularly reviews for the ESRC, HTA and NIHR funding bodies, and a number of academic journals.She is a steering group member of the Language and Communication Workstream for the Better Start Bradford project.