Study Outputs

Sharing insights and findings from our TEDDY Study continuously is important to us in order to keep participating families informed, stay connected to our local community, and to maximise the potential impact of our research at the UCD Babylab. Alongside academic dissemination, we are committed to engaging directly with our community, interested parents, and early childhood groups. Over the past year, this has included visits to the Explorium, a range of parent and toddler groups, and public events such as the Welcome to the World Exhibition and Dublin Maker. 

 

We are grateful for the opportunity to present our work at both national and international conferences across Ireland, the UK, and Canada. Recent presentations include the Children’s Research Network Annual Conference (2024), the International Infant and Early Child Conference (2025), and the Cognitive Development Society Conference (2026). We also share insights and early findings from the TEDDY Study through blog posts and peer-reviewed journal articles. Our recent written contributions include:

  • A head taller: A meta-analysis on the relation between pretend play and executive functions in early childhood, Developmental Review (Link)

In this journal article, we are summarising the current state of research on the interplay between children’s pretend play and their executive functions development. Across studies, we find that these two constructs are consistently linked with each other, indicating a potential developmental benefit of play!

  • When Dads are supported, the whole family benefits, RTÉ Brainstorm (Link)

In this blog post, written with our research partner Dave Saunders from From Lads to Dads, we are highlighting some of the ways we are trying to engage fathers in our research at the UCD Babylab and the TEDDY Study.

  • Grab a chair, let’s talk about play, UCD Babylab Blog (Link)

In this blog post, Joanna Kelly, our former master student and lab assistant, writes about our community event where we talked with parents of toddlers about their perspective on play and its role in their children’s cognitive development.