UTD LILAC Lab

Another amazing year, another LILAC Lab photo! Meet the 2025-2026 LILAC Lab team! 🪻

We’ve updated our lab photo yet again and, true to tradition, took one professional picture and one silly one. Swipe to see the smiling faces of our research team!

We are the The Language Interaction & Language Acquisition in Children (LILAC) Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas. We research how parent-child interactions support early language development in autistic children, bilingual children, and monolingual children. As we wrap up Spring 2026 and head into the summer, we can’t wait for another year of conducting new research, working with little ones and their families, and welcoming a new cohort of students to the lab!

🌱 To learn more about us, visit the linktree in our bio!

⭐️ It’s Week 4 of our Autism Acceptance Month series and this week we’re highlighting Local + Virtual Resource and Support Groups!

From cooking classes to social groups to respite care and virtual communities, these programs create a space for independence, connection, and support for autistic dividuals and their families 💜

Whether you’re looking to build life skills, meet new people, or find a supportive community, there’s something here for all ages and needs!

✨ Swipe through to explore opportunities in the DFW area and beyond
✨ Share with someone who might benefit
✨ Let’s continue building a more inclusive and supportive community together

🎨We loved meeting so many wonderful families at the AUsome Moms Resource Fair last Saturday! Our team at the LILAC Lab enjoyed sharing how our research aims to support the many different paths to language development and communication growth in all children.

✨Thank you to everyone who came by to chat, play, and celebrate neurodiversity with us!

📚Curious about our latest studies or want to get involved with our research? Click the link in our bio to learn more!

⭐️ It’s Week 3 of our Autism Acceptance Month series and this week we’re highlighting sensory-friendly spots across DFW!

🌈 From calm sensory rooms to hands on play and outdoor activities, there’s something for every child to explore and enjoy

🐘 Dallas Zoo Sensory Morning
🤸 We Rock the Spectrum Kid’s Gym
🎨 Kimbell Art Museum Sensory Play Space
🛝 Down to Play Indoor Playground
🖍️ ColorPalooza + The Nest sensory space

🧠 Inclusive, engaging, and designed for all abilities

👉 Swipe to find your next outing!

⭐️ It’s Week 2 of our Autism Acceptance Month series and this week we’re highlighting research!

Early communication doesn’t look the same for every child 💭

A recent study found that many autistic preschoolers with limited language still actively communicate using a mix of words, gestures, and even devices. A large portion of the words they use *aren’t* from standard “core word” lists. Instead, they’re personal, meaningful words tied to their own interests.

🔗 Want to learn more? Check the link in our bio for the full study!

🐛 ☀️ This Autism Acceptance Month, as the weather gets warmer, take your child’s learning outside with a Nature Texture Hunt!

Try out this fun, sensory-friendly activity that builds vocabulary and helps children connect with the world around them! It’s adaptable for children of all ages and of all language abilities! 💡

👇 Comment below if you’ll be trying this activity!

🧠 April is Autism Acceptance Month! It’s a time to celebrate neurodiversity and reflect on how we can build more inclusive, accessible, and supportive spaces for autistic individuals. This month, we aim to center autistic perspectives by sharing research, resources, and community-centered content for autistic individuals and their families, while also thinking critically about how research and clinical spaces can be more inclusive and responsive.

🌟 Throughout April, we’ll be sharing at-home and local activities, autism research updates, and local resources and support groups for autistic individuals and their families.

♾️ Throughout the month, we’ll be posting new content each week. What else would you like to see from us this April? How can we better center and support autistic individuals and their families?

Stay tuned to celebrate Autism Acceptance Month with the LILAC Lab!

📣 Love our work? Join our team!!

The LILAC Lab is now recruiting undergraduate research assistants for Summer and Fall 2026!

Interested in gaining research experience in parent-child interactions and language development in young children? We would love to have you join our team!

Learn more about us in the link in our bio or apply via the UTD Research Portal.

📅 Application deadline: April 3rd

🎉 We are so proud of our lab director, Dr. Pumpki Lei Su (), for delivering an early-career keynote at the Meeting on Language in Autism (MoLA) this past week. What an incredible milestone for our lab!

🎙️Her talk, *“From Processing to Learning from Language Input: Parentese and Language Learning in Autism,”* brought together a decade of work spanning her dissertation, collaborative projects, and research from the LILAC Lab. The keynote highlighted that children are not passive recipients of language input. Through their attention, vocalizations, and engagement, children influence the type and quality of language they hear, which in turn supports learning. To support learning, we need to consider not only what input children receive, but also how children’s own behaviors elicit, modify, and sustain that input over time.

💜 We are grateful to the MoLA community for this opportunity and excited to continue building on this line of research!

The LILAC Lab wishes you a prosperous year of the Horse! 🏮 马年行大运🧧
Here’s a fun sensory friendly activity for you and your toddler to try! For more instructions and to watch a demonstration, visit sciencebuddies.org.

Our lab gets creative with our white boards! Scroll to take a look at our recent favorites! Comment your favorite board down below! 👇