Louise Paatsch

Professor Louise Paatsch is the Deputy Director of Deakin University's Strategic Research Centre in Education - Research for Educational Impact (REDI), and a Chief Investigator at the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Her research focuses on children's and young people's communication, language, digital play, pretend play, and literacy development, with a strong focus on metapragmatic and pragmatic language use and the link to social communication. She also investigates teachers' talk patterns and intentional teaching practices in supporting children's and young people's communication, language, and play abilities. Louise also undertakes research that focuses on the communication, spoken language and literacy abilities of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and young people. She also works with teachers and educators to explore their own practices as reflective researchers to support positive outcomes for children, young people, and their families.