Nelson completed her dissertation research on the organization of free recall of verbal information in children at the University of California, Los Angeles, under the guidance of W. E. Jeffrey and T.
[4] Similarly, Michael Tomasello highlighted Nelson's emphasis on "the function of language and linguistic concepts in children's larger conceptual and social lives and, conversely, how children's emerging understanding of the function of linguistic symbols in larger conceptual and social structures makes language acquisition possible.
[9] In 2008, Nelson received the G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology[10] and her book Young Minds in Social Worlds: Experience, Meaning, and Memory received the Maccoby Book Award from the American Psychological Association, Division 7.
[4][12] Her book Language in Cognitive Development: Emergence of the Mediated Mind (Cambridge University Press, 1998) stands in contrast to the theories of Jean Piaget and others that cognitive and linguistic development are independent of each other, and instead views language acquisition as a bridge that connects a child's social and cultural growth with his or her growing knowledge of the world.
[13][14] In collaboration with her former doctoral student Robyn Fivush, she developed a theory that parent-child reminiscing about the past plays a foundational role in the formation of autobiographical memory.