Dr. Melissa Baralt began her career as a primary school teacher in Maracaibo, Venezuela. She later attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she studied how the brain acquires language and how teachers, caregivers, and parents can best support the language learning process. At Florida International University (FIU), Dr. Baralt serves in two key roles: language teacher educator and psycholinguistics researcher. At FIU’s Center for Children and Families, her funded research explores the relation between language and health, with a primary focus on how bilingualism impacts cognition in children born prematurely. In collaboration with FIU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, she and her team functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine neural recruitment of executive functioning in preterm-born children exposed to different language environments. Dr. Baralt also conducts research on early language development, with particular emphasis on bilingualism in young children and different linguistic environments that promote productive bilingualism. In May 2017, she and her team were named winners of the United States Federal Challenge, funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). Their free mobile app, Háblame Bebé, coaches caregivers on how and why to raise children bilingually, promotes Spanish language use, and fosters pride in Hispanic bilingual identity. In addition, Dr. Baralt collaborates with Reach Out and Read to integrate bilingual early literacy and language development strategies into pediatric healthcare settings, supporting caregiver–child interaction during well-child visits. Her research has been funded by the NIH, NEH, DOE, HRSA, Baptist Health, among others. Across research, teaching, and community partnerships, her work centers on ensuring that all children are prepared for kindergarten and lifelong learning.
Please see Dr. Baralt's bio in the Department of Modern Languages to learn more about her work in second language acquisition.
Research Areas
- Psycholinguistics
- Second language acquisition
- Bilingual language development and assessment in children
- Linguistic environments of early childhood education spaces
- Parent/ Caregiver-child interactions
- Bilingual education curriculum design
- Methodologies of language teaching
- Language teacher education and cognition
- Community-engaged research for parent literacy supports
Education
- PhD in Applied Psycholinguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (awarded with distinction)
- MS in Applied Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
- BA in Spanish Linguistics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia