About
Professor Teresa Satterfield is a linguist whose areas of research include child bilingualism, first language acquisition (the roles of [psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic] factors in developing grammars), language contact phenomena in the context of U.S. (Afro-)Latinx identity and culture. Satterfield collaborates extensively on studies using fNIRS brain imaging techniques to inform theories of syntactic development and literacy research in bilingual children. She is the founder and director of the community-based Saturday Spanish academic program for Spanish-speaking children grades Pre-K to 5, "En Nuestra Lengua (ENL), https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/en-nuestra-lengua, www.facebook.com/EnNuestraLengua. Satterfield is the 2022 recipient of the Individual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Race & Ethnicity Instruction; College of LSA; the 2024 recipient of the Puentes Latinx Research Week Mentor Award; and the 2024 inaugural recipient of the Robert M. Sellers Faculty Outreach Ambassador Award, University of Michigan.
Specializations: bilingualism and heritage speakers, syntactic theory, language variation and contact, computational models of language
Other areas of interest: language as a Complex Adaptive System
Recent and Selected Publications
Salig, L., Yu, C-L., Leachman, M., Ortiz-Villalobos, V., Flores-Gaona, Z., Vélez-Negrón, V., Girardini, C., Fang, H-Y., Baron, A., Bedore, L., Booth, J., Peña,
E., Satterfield, T., Brennan, J. & I. Kovelman (2026). Neural tracking of surprisal in Spanish-English bilingual children during naturalistic HL listening. Brain
and Language, 281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2026.105833
Vélez-Negrón, V., Collon, C. & T. Satterfield (2025). Amigos del cuarto grado de Naranjito, PR y Michigan, EEUU: Las colaboraciones globales como estrategias eficaces en la enseñanza transformadora de lectura. Global Journal of Transformative Education, 5: 22-40. https://doi: 10.14434/gjte.v5i1.42529
Solís-Barroso, C., Pires, A., & T. Satterfield (2025). Navigating Ambiguity: Scope Interpretations in Spanish/English Heritage Bilinguals. Languages, 10(9)244: https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10090244
Ortiz Villalobos, V., Kovelman, I. & T. Satterfield (2025). Can the Simple View of Reading Inform the Study of Reading Comprehension in Young Spanish Heritage Language Learners? Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.70013
Flores, Z., Satterfield, T. & I. Kovelman. (2025). In Lockman, J., ed. The Bilingual Reading Brain: Insights from Young Bilingual Learners. In Foundations of Literacy. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, (68):223 – 252. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2025.04.003
Ben-Kí, A., Pandey, M. & T. Satterfield. (2025). “Facilitar no es fácil”: Latino/a high school students as initiators of Spanish community service learning during the pandemic. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,YPAR Special Edition, 31(1): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.5919
Satterfield, T. (2025). Foreword. In Valentín-Márquez, W., Maymí, C. & D. Powell, eds: Puerto Rican Spanish, Reggaeton Style: The (Socio)Linguistics of Urban Music. Vernon Press, xii – xix.
Satterfield, T. & J. Benkí (to appear) Making Spanish-language learning ‘safe’ for US Latino children: The En Nuestra Lengua Literacy and Culture Project. In Ceballos, R. & D. Rivas-Drake, eds. Growing up Latino/a/x in the Land of Liberty. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Satterfield, T. (to appear). The role of language contact in computational models of second language acquisition. In Mayer, E. & Sánchez, L, Handbook of SLA and Language Contact.
Flores-Gaona, F., Salig, L., Ortiz-Villalobos, V., Kovelman, I. & T. Satterfield. (submitted). Immigrant family code-switching practices and heritage language transmission: A cautionary tale at the intersection of motivation, social success, and language proficiency. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 32.2.
Satterfield, T., Salig, L. Vélez-Negrón, V., Leachman, M., Girardini, C., Bautista, A., Barroso Solis, C., Johnson, Z., Monk, A., Caruso, V. & I. Kovelman. (submitted). Clitic Left Dislocation in Early and Sequential Spanish-English Bilinguals: Supporting syntactic analysis through brain imaging. Letras Hispanas.
Leachman, M., Caruso, V., Salig, L., Eggleston, R., Ortiz Villalobos, V., Vélez-Negrón, V., Flores-Gaona, Z., Bautista, A., Girardini, C., Muniz Chams, G., Wagley, N., Baron, A., Peña, E., Bedore, L., Booth, J., Brennan, J., Satterfield, T. & I. Kovelman. (submitted). Spatial and temporal features of syntactic and semantic neurodevelopment for Spanish-English bilingual children. Developmental Science.
Vélez-Negrón, V., Mathews, C., & T. Satterfield. (submitted). Raciolinguistic Experiences, Ethnic-Racial Identity, and Critical Consciousness in Latino Early Adolescents’ STEM Play and Engagement. Journal of Adolescent Research Special Issue on STEM Learning, Race and Play.
Salig, L., Muñoz, V., Baybas, J., Satterfield, T., Brennan, J. & I. Kovelman. (preprint 2026). Engagement of memory networks during naturalistic comprehension of bilingual codeswitches.
Recent undergraduate courses taught:
Span 300/RomLang 300: Introduction to the Romance Languages
Span 373: Bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world
Span 385: Race & Ethnicity in the Spanish-speaking World: The language of reggaetón (R&E approved course)
Span 411: Spanish Morphosyntax
Span 487: Seminar in Mock Spanish: Language, mockery and racism (R&E approved course)
Span 487: Seminar in AfroHispanic languages
Research Areas(s)
- Romance linguistics, (first) language acquisition, bilingualism, syntactic theory, language variation and contact, computational models of language
Affiliation(s)
- Romance Languages & Literatures
- Combined Program of Education and Psychology (CPEP)
- Linguistics
- Psychology (Developmental)
