Paul van Geert is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...

. He is currently a professor of developmental psychology at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is the ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He is renowned for his work on developmental psychology and the application of

dynamical systems theory Dynamical systems theory is an area of mathematics used to describe the behavior of complex systems, complex dynamical systems, usually by employing differential equations or difference equations. When differential equations are employed, the theo ...

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

. He is one of the members of the "Dutch School of Dynamic Systems" who proposed to apply

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. E ...

data to study

second language development Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in the field of linguistics is a perspective and approach to the study of second, third and additional language acquisition. The general term Complex Dynamic Systems Theory was recommended by Kees de Bot to refer to b ...

along with de Bot, Lowie, and Verspoor.

Career

Between 1967 and 1971 van Geert studied psychology and educational sciences at the

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, whe ...

, Belgium. In 1975 he was awarded with a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in Developmental psychology. In 1976 he became a lecturer at the

. In 1976 he was appointed as a Lecturer and in 1978 he became a

Senior Lecturer Senior lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and Israel senior lecturer is a faculty position at a university or similar institution. The position is tenured (in systems with this con ...

at the

. Between 1978 and 1979 he was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In 1985 he was appointed as a Professor of Psychology and a Chair of Developmental Psychology at the

. Between 1990 and 1992 he was the Dean of the Department of Psychology at the University of Groningen. Between 1992 and 1993 he was a fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social an ...

at Stanford University in California.

Work

Paul van Geert was the first to apply the

logistic function A logistic function or logistic curve is a common S-shaped curve (sigmoid function, sigmoid curve) with equation f(x) = \frac, where For values of x in the domain of real numbers from -\infty to +\infty, the S-curve shown on the right is ...

to model first

language development Language development in humans is a process starting early in life. Infants start without knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech sounds and engage in babbling. Some research has shown that the earliest learning begi ...

in 1991. He developed a

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for ...

VBA code to model developmental data in 2003. In 2002 he created new techniques and methods to measure the degree of variability by applying min-max graphs, resampling techniques, and

Monte Carlo method Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be deter ...

along with

Marijn van Dijk Marijn van Dijk (born 6 August 1972) is a Dutch linguist. She is currently an Associate Professor of Developmental psychology at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen, Netherlands. Career van Dijk obta ...

Supervision

He supervised his future colleague at the

, who obtained her

PhD Degree A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 2004. The title of her Phd Thesis was ''Child Language Cuts Capers: Variability and Ambiguity in Early Child Development''.

Bibliography

Books

*''A Dynamic Systems Model of Cognitive and Language Growth'' (1991) *''Dynamic Systems of Development: Change between Complexity and Chaos'' (1994)

Articles

*"A dynamic systems model of cognitive and language growth." (1991) *"A dynamic systems model of basic developmental mechanisms: Piaget, Vygotsky, and beyond." (1998) *"The dynamics of general developmental mechanisms: From Piaget and Vygotsky to dynamic systems models." (2000) *"Focus on variability: New tools to study intra-individual variability in developmental data." (2002) *"Dynamic systems approaches and modeling of developmental processes." (2003) *"Explaining after by before: Basic aspects of a dynamic systems approach to the study of development." (2005) *"The dynamics of scaffolding." (2005) *"Wobbles, humps and sudden jumps: A case study of continuity, discontinuity and variability in early language development." (2007) *"Time and identity: A framework for research and theory formation." (2008) *"The dynamic systems approach in the study of L1 and L2 acquisition: An introduction." (2008)

References

External links

* Professor van Geert on the University of Groningen's website: https://web.archive.org/web/20180120065650/https://www.rug.nl/staff/p.l.c.van.geert/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Geert, Paul van 1950 births Living people Applied linguists Psycholinguists Linguists from Belgium Ghent University alumni Geert, Paul People from Temse