Breakfast Roundtable Discussions
Understanding the Needs of Very Young Military Children
Latrobe, Friday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Margaret Feerick, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
There is little research that focuses specifically on the needs of infants and toddlers experiencing deployment-related parental trauma or injury. Specifically, research is needed to assess risk and resiliency in infants and toddlers in the context of extended and multiple deployments, reintegration, varying levels of support and resources, and parental physical injury and emotional illness. The purpose of this roundtable discussion/breakfast is to identify key research needs and promising approaches with respect to very young military children and to provide an overview of current funding priorities in this area.
Pushed Buttons Don't Equal the Baby: Pitfalls of Automatization in Physiological Measures
Ruth, Friday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Nancy Snidman, Children's Hospital Boston
Over the past decade the techniques for noninvasive collection of physiologic measures from human subjects have become increasingly user-friendly. Buy a turnkey system, plug your subject in and you can have numbers that represent physiologic functions ranging from cardiac output to brain activity. On the one hand, this may be progress but, on the other hand, perhaps investigators have rushed too fast into complex areas with insufficient knowledge and training and have attached meaning to observed changes in physiology that may or may not actually have anything to do with the psychological constructs we are attempting to measure. This may be especially true in developmental research where we are attempting to make sense of the infant’s cognitive and emotional abilities.
This roundtable discussion will focus on issues that are pertinent to any investigator who is collecting or wants to collect infant physiologic data. We will address such questions as: If you can't do it right, is it worth doing at all? Can just one measure of physiology actually tell you about the psychology behind your construct? How many different systems can you measure before the subject burden becomes your stressor? If stimuli are presented when the infant is fussy or inattentive, are these stimuli processed? Is it important to have a measure of "attentiveness" when doing studies of infant attention? If so, is HR the measure? Each of the discussion leaders has extensive research experience using a wide variety of physiological measures.
Tracking Infants' Eye Gaze Patterns Using the Tobii System
Johnson AB, Friday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Helen Tager-Flusberg, Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital Boston
One of the most widely used measures in infant research is tracking infants’ eye movements. These measures are used to investigate visual development, conceptual knowledge and development, language development and even motor development. These days, researchers rely more and more on automated eye-tracking systems, and the Tobii system is probably the most widely used in infant research. This roundtable discussion is to foster a discussion among researchers with experience using the Tobii system (and those wishing to learn) about some of the methodological issues related to data collection, analysis and interpretation.
The roundtable will include informal presentations and discussion issues from a panel of experts (including Richard Aslin, Scott Johnson, Gergely Csibra,Charles Nelson, Michael Frank, Robin Panneton Kristin Shutts) and will include people from Tobii - Hans Bergman and Ken Gregory. This roundtable will be especially useful for people currently using a Tobii system or with plans to do in the future. Breakfast is sponsored by Tobii Corporation.
Assessment of Bilingual Children's Language: Issues and Approaches
Key Ballroom Salon 2, Saturday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Bangor University, Wales
This Roundtable Discussion will focus on issues related to language assessment in bilingual children. It is generally acknowledged that bilingual children's language is different from monolinguals', but bilingual language development is commonly misdiagnosed as language impairment. One challenge in improving diagnostic accuracy for this population is that standardized language measures, until recently, are based on monolingual populations. Leading world experts in the field (Lisa Bedore, Jan de Jong, Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Vera Gutierrez-Clellen, Elizabeth Peña, Enlli M. Thomas, Elin T. Thordardottir) will discuss the nature of bilingual children's language abilities; how best to assess those abilities and to establish bilingual norms; and educational, therapy, and policy challenges surrounding these issues.
Responding to Infants' Inconsolable Cries: Supporting Family Coping
Key Ballroom Salon 3, Saturday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Beth S. Russell, Worcester State College
This discussion will focus on tools researchers and caseworkers can use to support parents' distress while caring for an inconsolably crying infant. The session will describe the rarely addressed consequences of long and intense crying bouts on the affective interaction between parent and infant: the mutual regulation within the dyadic relationship - per Tronick's (2007) Mutual Regulation Model. Next, the discussion leaders will present specific strategies drawn from 1) Family-centered practice, and 2)Dialectical Behavior Therapy to build the “tool kit” for families, researchers, and service providers.
Evaluating the Impact of Early Power Mobility on the Cognition, Perception and Socialization of Children With Special Needs
Calloway Rooms A-B, Saturday 7:00am - 8:30am
Chair: Amy Lynch, University of Delaware
In typically developing infants, the emergence of independent locomotion is associated with advances in perception, cognition, motor, and social-emotional skills. In contrast, children with moderate to severe motor impairments often have delayed or absent locomotion, and these delays are accompanied by delays in joint attention and manual search for hidden objects. This round table aims to gather experts in perception, cognition, memory, and action, as well as those interested in the impact of early powered mobility. We hope that this round table will result in a consortium of researchers and clinicians collaborating in multi-site studies advancing our knowledge of earlier access to powered mobility for children with special needs.