Rhiannon Luyster
Professor, School of Communication
Dr. Rhiannon Luyster is a developmental psychologist whose program of research focuses on autism. She has a longstanding interest in early social communication and language in autism, and is an author on the Toddler Module of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule – 2nd edition (ADOS-2).
Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Philosophical Society, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, Organization for Autism Research, and Emerson College. Her research activities are open to Emerson students interested in learning more about clinical research with young children.
Dr. Luyster has published her work in several peer-reviewed journals, including Developmental Psychology; Development & Psychopathology; Journal of Child Language, Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research; Autism Research; and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. She was the recipient of the Emerson College Alumni Award for Teaching Innovation in 2016. She was awarded a Huret Faculty Excellence Award in 2021 and a Norman and Irma Mann Stearns Award in 2023.
Courses
- Research Methods and Measurements
- Developmental Psychology
- Master's Thesis
- Autism: Social Communication Development and Disorder
- Directed Study
Academic Work
- 2026, “Inquiry and Innovation: Considering curiosity and creativity in autism,” with Green-Pendleton, K., & Arunachalam, S., Acta Psychologica
- 2025, “An autistic ‘linguatype’? Neologisms, new words and new insights,” with Zane, E. Autism Research
- 2025, “Quality of remotely-collected gaze data in autistic and nonspectrum children,” with Boyd, T., Steele, A.*, Sancimino, C., Buonocore, T., & Arunachalam, S. Language Development Research
- 2025, “Remote infant studies of early learning (RISE): Scalable online replications of key findings in infant cognitive development,” with Tenenbaum, E. J., Stone, C., Vu, M. H., Hare, M., Gilyard, K. R., Arunachalam, S., Bergelson, E., Frank, M. C., Hamlin, J. K., Kline Struhl, M., Landa, R. J., Lew-Williams, C., Libertus, M. E., Markant, J., Sheinkopf, S. J., Wagner, J. B., Park, K., Grapel, J. N., Soderling, A. I., Waterman, A. K., & Jeste, S. Developmental Psychology, epub before print
- 2025, “Personal pronoun comprehension in addressed and non-addressed situations in autistic and nonautistic preschoolers,” with Artis, J., Carroll, L., He, A., & Arunachalam, S. Journal of Cognition and Development (winner of 2025 Editor’s Choice Award)
- 2024, “Do focused interests support word learning? A study in autistic and nonautistic children,” with Arunachalam, S., Steele, A.*, Buonocore, T. & Pelletier, T.* Autism Research, epub
- 2023, “Frequency, form and function of dyadic questions in ASD,” with Leiwant, I.*, & Arunachalam, S., Communication Disorders Quarterly, 44(3), 163-172
- 2022, “Parental tuning of language input to autistic and nonspectrum children,” with He, A. & Arunachalam, S. Frontiers in Psychology (Developmental Psychology section), epub
- 2022, “Conventions for Unconventional Language: Revisiting a framework for spoken language features in autism,” with Zane, E. & Wisman Weil, L. Autism and Developmental Language Impairments, epub
- 2022, “Consistency and inconsistency in caregiver reporting of vocabulary,” Arunachalam, S., Avtushka, V., & Guthrie, W. Language Learning and Development, 18(1), 81-96
- *indicates student/mentee
