Dear Colleagues,
We write to share sad news of the passing of Dr. Lois M. Bloom, Professor Emerita of Psychology and Education in TC’s Department of Human Development, on January 14, 2025.
Professor Bloom was a major figure in the study of child language, with important contributions regarding intentionality, causality, pivot grammar, individual differences, negation, null subjects, and the overall course of word learning and language development. After receiving her Ph.D., with distinction, from Columbia University, Professor Bloom joined TC as an assistant professor in 1969. Her dissertation, Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars, was published by MIT Press the next year.
When she came to prominence in the 1970s, Professor Bloom was one of just a handful of researchers who were beginning to systematically examine child language by recording transcripts of their speech. She, along with several other researchers, began to record and transcribe what they heard from their child participants – ultimately making the transcription methodology fundamental to the upcoming research field. Unlike many of her fellow researchers in linguistics, Professor Bloom tended to eschew formal approaches to syntax and focused on the intentionality and circumstances of children's utterances.
While Coordinator of the Program in Developmental Psychology, she led a group of TC researchers who studied the emergence of language over a 20-month period with a group of children from the New York City area. Credited by The New York Times for pioneering efforts in "psycholinguistics," Professor Bloom said her research showed that existing theories about language development made incorrect assumptions about the role of infants' expressions of emotion in language acquisition. “We have found that language does not replace emotional expression,” she said. “Language and emotional expression develop side-by-side."
As an early member of the Speech Language Pathology program at Teachers College, Professor Bloom imported her approach to the study and evaluation of child language disorders, along with her colleague, Margaret Lahey. The three cornerstones of analysis of child language were: Content, Form and Use. These methods continue to be important in studying and evaluating child language disorders within the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
Professor Bloom authored numerous books and dozens of periodical publications, including One Word At a Time: The Use of Single-Word Utterances Before Syntax, the culmination of Bloom's first longitudinal study, and the first-ever published study of language acquisition to use video-recorded data. Her book Language Development From Two To Three, a collection of findings from research studies spanning two decades, highlights the tremendous achievements in language acquisition that occur during this period of childhood. For Language Development and Language Disorders, co-authored with Lahey, Professor Bloom connected her research with her early experience as a speech therapist working with children with language delays.
Professor Bloom received the G. Stanley Hall Award of Division 7 of the American Psychological Association in 1997, the highest honor that can be bestowed by colleagues in the field of Developmental Psychology; and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Research in Child Development in 2003.
As a scholar, colleague, mentor and friend, Professor Lois Bloom made an enormous impact on many of us at TC, and on the fields of language development and development psychology. On behalf of the entire Teachers College community, we extend our heartfelt condolences to her loved ones. For those who are able to and would like to join, a memorial service will take place on February 8th, with a reception beginning at 10:00 a.m. and the service at 11:00 a.m., at: Lesko Funeral Home, 1209 Post Road, Fairfield, CT.
Sincerely,
KerryAnn O’Meara
Provost and Dean of the College
Professor of Higher Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
she/her/hers
Peter Gordon
Chair and Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Education
Department of Human Development
Teachers College, Columbia University