Research
Sociocultural developmental psychology: the development of narrative production and comprehension, the developmental roles of narrative and play, social cognition, identity formation, the peer group as a matrix for learning and development, the interplay of literacy and oral language, and analysis of children's books.
For more information, please visit my lab website or send me an email.
Selected Publications (for more, see Academia.edu webpage):
Nicolopoulou, A. (in press). Pretend and social pretend play: Complexities, continuities, and controversies of a research field. In P. Smith & J. L. Roopnarine (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of play: Developmental and disciplinary perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
Dickinson, D., Nesbitt, K. T., Collins, M. F., Hadley, E. B., Newman, K., Rivera, B., Ilgaz, H., Nicolopoulou, A., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K. (in press). A depth of processing account of the effects of using book reading to teach for breath and depth of vocabulary knowledge. Early Childhood Research Quartely.
Nicolopoulou, A. & Trapp, S. (2018). Narrative interventions for children with language disorders: A review of practices and findings. In A. Bar-On, D. Ravid, & E. Dattner (Eds), Handbook of communication disorders: Theoretical, empirical, and applied linguistic perspectives (pp. 357-386). Mouton de Gruyter.
Toub, T.S., Hassinger-Das, B., Nesbitt, K. T., Ilgaz, H., Weisberg, D. S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Nicolopoulou, A. & Dickinson, D. (2018). The language of play: Developing preschool vocabulary through play following shared book-reading. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45, 1-17 doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.01.010
Nicolopoulou, A. & *Ünlütabak, B. (2017). Narrativity and mindreading revisited: Children’s understanding of theory of mind in a storybook and in standard false belief tasks. In N. Ketrez, A. C. Küntay, Ş. Özçalışkan, & A. Özyürek (Eds.), Social environment and cognition in language development: Studies in honor of Ayhan Aksu-Koç (pp. 151-166). Trends in Language Acquisition Research Series (TiLAR): John Benjamins.
Nicolopoulou, A. (2016). Promoting oral narrative skills through a peer-oriented storytelling and story-acting practice. In T. Cremin, R. Flewitt, B. Mardell, & J. Swann (Eds). Storytelling in Early Childhood: Enriching Language, Literacy, and Classroom Culture (pp. 49-66). London & New York: Routledge.
Baldmisti, E., Peristeri, E., Tsimpli, I. M., & Nicolopoulou, A. (2016). Bilingual children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from oral narrative and non-verbal executive function tasks. BUCLD 40: Proceedings of the 40th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 1, 18-31.
Nicolopoulou, A., Cortina, K.S., Ilgaz, H, Cates Brockmeyer, C., de Sá, A. (2015). Using a narrative- and play-based activity to promote low-income preschoolers’ oral language, emergent literacy, and social competence. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 31, 147-162. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.01.006
Weisberg, D.S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M., Nicolopoulou, A., Dickinson, D.K. (2015). Shovels and swords: How realistic and fantastical themes affect children’s word learning. Cognitive Development, 35, 1-14. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.11.001
Nicolopoulou, A. (2015). Young children’s pretend play and storytelling as modes of narrative activity: From complementarity to cross-fertilization? In S. Douglas & L. Stirling (Eds.), Children’s Play, Pretense, and Story: Studies in Culture, Context, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (pp. 7-28). New York: Routledge.
Aksu-Koc, A., Nicolopoulou, A. (2015). Character reference in young children’s narratives: A comparison of English, Greek, and Turkish. Lingua, Special Issue: Acquisition of Reference and Referentiality, 155, 62-84. pdf
Tsimpli, I.M., Papakonstatinou, M., Nicolopoulou, A. (2014). Linguistic structure and narrative quality in child L1 production. N. Lavidas, T. Alexiou, & A.M. Sougati (Eds.). Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics 2. Selected Papers from the 20th INSTAL (pp. 287-403). De Gruyter Open (formely Versita).
Nicolopoulou, A., Brockmeyer, C., de Sá, A., & Ilgaz, H. (2014). Narrative performance, peer group culture, and narrative development in a preschool classroom. In A. Cakaite, S. Blum-Kulka, V. Aukrust, & E. Teubal (Eds.). Children’s Peer Talk: Learning from Each Other (pp. 42-62). NY: Cambridge University Press.
Nicolopoulou, A. & Ilgaz, H. (2013). What do we know about pretend play and narrative development?: A response to Lillard, Lerner, Hopkins, Dore, Smith, and Palmquist on “The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence.” American Journal of Play [Special Issue], 6(1), 55-80.
Nicolopoulou, A. (2011). Children’s storytelling: Toward an interpretive and sociocultural approach. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 3, 25-48.
Nicolopoulou, A. (2010). The alarming disappearance of play from early childhood education. Human Development, 53(1), 1-4. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. , de Sá, A., Ilgaz, H., & Brockmeyer, C. (2010). Using the transformative power of play to educate hearts and minds: From Vygotsky to Vivian Paley and beyond. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 5, 61-71. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Cole, M. (2010). Design experimentation as a theoretical and empirical tool for developmental pedagogical research. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 17, 1-17. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Weintraub, J. (2009). Why operativity-in-context is not quite a sociocultural model. Commentary on: The social and the psychological: Structure and context in intellectual development, by Psaltis, Duveen, & Perrett-Clermont. Human Development , 52, 320-328. [Invited Commentary] PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (2008). Rethinking character representation and its development in children's narratives. In J. Guo et al. (Eds.), Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language: Research in the Tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 241- 251). New York: Taylor & Francis. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (2008). The elementary forms of narrative coherence in young children's storytelling. Narrative Inquiry, 18, 299-325. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Richner, E.S. (2007). From actors to agents to persons: The development of character representation in young children's narratives. Child Development, 78, 412-429. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (2007). The interplay of play and narrative in children's development: Theoretical reflections and concrete examples. In A.Goncu & S. Gaskins (Eds.) Play and Development: Evolutionary, Sociocultural, and Functional Perspectives (pp. 247-273). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A., McDowell, J., & Brockmeyer, C. (2006). Narrative play and emergent literacy: Storytelling and story-acting meet journal writing. In D. Singer, R. Golinkoff & K. Hirsh-Pasek (Eds.) Play=Learning (pp. 124-144). New York: Oxford University Press. PDF
NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (2005). Pathways to reading: The role of oral language in the transition to reading. Developmental Psychology, 41, 428-442. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Richner, E. S. (2004). "When your powers combine, I am Captain Planet": The development significance of individual- and group-authored stories by preschoolers. Discourse Studies, 6, 347-371. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (2002). Peer-group culture and narrative development. In S. Blum-Kulka & C. E. Snow (Eds.), Talking to Adults (pp. 117-152). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. PDF
Richner, E. S., & Nicolopoulou, A. (2001). The narrative construction of differing conceptions of the person in the development of young children's social understanding. Early Education and Development, 12,393-432. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Cole, M.. (1999). Literacy and cognition. In D.A. Wagner, R.L. Venezky, & B.V. Street (Eds.), Literacy: An International Handbook (pp. 81-86). Boulder, CO: Westview. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. & Weintraub, J. (1998). Individual and collective representations in social context: A modest contribution to resuming the interrupted project of a sociocultural developmental psychology. Human Development, 41, 215-235. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (1997). Worldmaking and identity formation in children's narrative play- acting. In B. Cox & C. Lightfoot (Eds.), Sociogenetic Perspectives on Internalization (pp.157 - 187). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (1997). Children and narratives: Toward an interpretive and sociocultural approach. In M. Bamberg (Ed.). Narrative Development: Six Approaches (pp. 179 - 215). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (1997). Labov's legacy for narrative research--and its ironies. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7, 369-377. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (1996). Narrative development in social context. In D.I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, J. Guo, & A. Kyratzis (Eds.), Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 369-390). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A., Scales, B., & Weintraub, J. (1994). Gender differences and symbolic imagination in the stories of four-year-olds. In A.H. Dyson & C. Genishi (Eds.), The Need for Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and Community (pp. 102-123). Urbana, IL: NCTE. PDF
Nicolopoulou, A. (1993). Play, cognitive development, and the social world: Piaget, Vygotsky, and beyond. Human Development, 36, 1-23. PDF
