Dr Kirsty R Green PhD, AFHEA

PhD in Psychology, University of Warwick, 2025
Associate Fellow of Advance HE, 2025
MA in Social Science Research, University of Warwick, 2022
MA in Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham, 2021
PGCE in English, University of Canterbury (Teach First), 2011
BA in English Language and Literature, University of Leeds, 2009

As a Teaching Fellow in Psychology, Kirsty teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate modules including Social and Differential Psychology, Language and Communication, and Research Methods in Mental Health. Her research and teaching interests span developmental psycholinguistics, with a particular focus on iconicity in speech and gesture in neurodiverse populations.

Her academic journey began with a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, which sparked her enduring interest in the interplay between language and psychology. She went on to complete an MA in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, before undertaking doctoral research in Psychology at the University of Warwick. Her PhD investigated the role of iconicity in speech and gesture during early child–caregiver interactions, combining multimodal analysis with developmental perspectives to understand how communicative forms support learning and social engagement.

During her doctoral registration, she gained substantial experience in higher education teaching as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (October 2022–April 2024). She taught seminars and tutorials across several undergraduate modules, including Language and Cognition (second-year, 2022 and 2023), Psychology in Context (first-year, 2023), and Developmental Psychology (second-year, 2024). These roles gave her extensive experience in seminar design, assessment marking, and student feedback. Importantly, they also enabled her to refine inclusive teaching practices, develop assessment literacy, and build confidence in supporting diverse student cohorts. In recognition of this work, she was awarded Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE) in February 2024.

Alongside teaching, she has been actively involved in academic organisation and research community-building. In April 2024, she co-ordinated the Conference on Multimodality in Early Interactions, supported by the ESRC and the University of Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Studies. This event attracted around 60 international delegates and involved full responsibility for reviewing abstracts, inviting and liaising with keynote speakers, planning the programme, and hosting the event. From October 2024 to June 2025, she also organised the Language and Learning seminar series at Warwick, where she invited national and international researchers, publicised events to academic and interdisciplinary audiences, and chaired discussions. Both roles provided valuable experience in fostering collaborative environments, disseminating research, and building international academic networks.

Before moving into academia full-time, she worked in secondary education for nearly a decade. She began her teaching career as part of the Teach First programme, working at Westminster Academy in London (2010–2012) as an English Teacher and Gifted and Talented/Aim Higher Coordinator. She then taught at Aylesford School and Sixth Form College (2012–2014) before becoming Deputy Head of English at Ashlawn School (2014–2019). These roles gave her rich experience in teaching, curriculum design, leadership, and student support, which continue to inform her practice in higher education.

Across her career, she has been committed to supporting student learning, both through innovative teaching methods and by creating inclusive and engaging environments. At Birmingham, she enjoys continuing this work, developing students’ understanding of psychology while drawing on my interdisciplinary background in language, communication, and education.

Language and Communication
Social and Differential Psychology
Research Review
Research Methods B
Research Methods in Mental Health

Her doctoral research investigated the role of iconicity—the resemblance between form and meaning—in early caregiver-child interactions, focusing on how iconic words and gestures support engagement and learning in infancy and early childhood. Across five studies, she combined experimental and corpus-based methods to examine how iconic forms function in naturalistic caregiver–child interactions and influence developmental trajectories.

The first two studies analysed how caregivers use iconic words (e.g., onomatopoeia) in infant-directed speech. In both a small-scale study of 18-month-olds and a larger cross-sectional sample of 13-, 18-, and 23-month-olds, iconic words were associated with greater infant engagement and more exaggerated infant-directed prosody. These findings suggest that iconicity serves multiple functions in caregiver-child interactions.

The third study used an experimental design to assess how iconicity affects word learning. Children aged 18 months and 3 years were taught novel onomatopoeic labels for animal toys that were either congruent or incongruent with the animals' sounds. While both groups learned congruent labels better, the effect reached statistical significance only in the older children. This suggests that sensitivity to form–meaning resemblance may strengthen with age or experience, offering new insight into how iconicity supports vocabulary acquisition across development.

The fourth study analysed a longitudinal corpus of naturalistic interactions to track the frequency and functions of onomatopoeia in caregiver and child speech across development. Onomatopoeia appeared more frequently in younger infants’ vocabularies and in caregivers’ speech to younger children. These words were often produced with playful prosody and typically used for enactment, rather than purely referential purposes—highlighting the multimodal, performative nature of early iconic communication.

The final study explored the emergence of iconic gestures. Analysing video recordings, she found that infants as young as 12 months produced spontaneous, representational gestures that resembled features of referents. These were often produced without direct adult modelling, suggesting an early capacity for embodied, iconic expression. This challenges the assumption that iconic gesture use requires linguistic proficiency or explicit instruction, and reinforces the importance of multimodal interaction in early symbolic development.

Together, these studies provide converging evidence that iconic forms—whether verbal or gestural—play a foundational role in early communication by making meanings more transparent and engaging. Her research contributes to key debates in developmental linguistics and cognitive science around the embodied, multimodal origins of symbolic systems. Importantly, it also lays the groundwork for applied research on how iconicity might support language development and engagement in neurodiverse populations.