213 research outputs found
Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory
No full textCaregiver executive functions (EFs) play an integral role in shaping cognitive development. Here, we investigated how caregiver EF abilities (86 caregivers; mean age = 33.4 years, SD = 4.5) was associated with visual working memory (VWM) in infants (86 infants females; mean age = 250.6 days, SD = 35.8). The BRIEF-A was used to assess caregiver EFs, and a preferential looking task along with fNIRS was used to assess VWM function in infants. Our findings revealed that better caregiver behavioral regulation was associated with better VWM performance, greater right-lateralized parietal activation, and left-lateralized frontal suppression, while better caregiver metacognition and emotional control was associated with greater right-lateralized temporal suppression in infants. Taken together, these associations suggest that better caregiver EF abilities might shape visuo-spatial attention and memory, guide fixation on task-relevant goals, and suppress distractions in children from as early as the first year of life. Highlights: The study investigated the association between caregiver executive functions (EF) and visual working memory (VWM) function in infants. Caregiver EFs were assessed using the BRIEF-A questionnaire, and infant VWM function was assessed using the preferential-looking task and brain imaging. Better caregiver EF abilities were associated with better VWM behavior and fronto-temporo-parietal engagement in infants
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, 43rd Annual ODU Literary Festival
No full textAimee Nezhukumatathil is a 2020 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and the author of four books of poetry: Oceanic; Lucky Fish (winner of the Hoffer Grand Prize for Prose and Independent Books); At the Drive-In Volcano; and Miracle Fruit. She is co-author of Lace & Pyrite, a chapbook of nature poems (2014). She is the poetry editor of Orion magazine and her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Awards for her writing include an NEA Fellowship in poetry and the Pushcart Prize. She is professor of English and creative writing in the MFA program of the University of Mississippi
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, 27th Annual ODU Literary Festival
No full textAimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago in 1974. She received her BA in English and her MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Ohio State University. She is the author of Fishbone, and was the Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin. She is currently an assistant professor of English at the State University of New York in Fredonia. Her most recent book, Miracle Fruit, won the 2002 Tupelo Press Judge’s Prize in Poetry
2016-2017 Aimee Nezhukumatathil
No full textAimee Nezhukumatathil is professor of English in the University of Mississippi\u27s MFA program. Her newest collection of poems is OCEANIC (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), published after her year as the Grisham Writer in Residence. She is also the author of the forthcoming book of illustrated nature essays, WORLD OF WONDER (2019, Milkweed), and three previous poetry collections: LUCKY FISH (2011), AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO (2007), and MIRACLE FRUIT (2003)–all from Tupelo Press. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of nature poems with the poet Ross Gay. She is the poetry editor of Orion magazine and her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry 2015 & 2018 series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pushcart Prize. (Photo credit: Ted Ely)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/grisham_res/1003/thumbnail.jp
The Impact of the Sensory Environment on Participation of Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
No full textAbstract
Date Presented 3/31/2017
This qualitative study explores the sensory environment to determine the impact on participation in the preschool environment. The study presents information gathered from semistructured interviews of preschool teachers and occupational therapists.
Primary Author and Speaker: Aimee Piller
Contributing Authors: Beth Pfeiffer</jats:p
Caregiver involvement on developmental changes in visual cognition: insights from behaviour and brain
No full textEarly in development, infants begin to share attention with mature caregivers, learning about objects and their environments. During this period, there are also considerable increases in visual cognition. Given that this system has far-reaching outcomes impacting the quality of life, it is important to study how this emerges and develops early in the lifespan, as well as what factors might influence its developmental trajectory. This thesis aimed to address these gaps, investigating associations between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition, with insights from dyadic play interactions. To do this, the preferential looking task was used to assess visual cognition at multiple timepoints. Caregiver-infant dyads also completed play interactions with objects. To gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms that underly behaviours during the preferential looking task and dyadic interactions, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was also used to examine brain function.
Previous research has suggested that infants’ ability to sustain attention may be influenced by their caregivers’ own attentional behaviours. Chapter 3 therefore examined if this association was measurable when visual cognition is objectively measured in caregivers and infants using comparable experimental paradigms. Importantly, findings in this chapter reported associations between caregivers’ and infants’ abilities to detect change. Further, infants with caregivers who were better able to detect change showed greater left parietal cortex activation. These findings provide first evidence of a visual neurocognitive association between caregivers and their children in the first year of life. To better understand these associations, Chapter 4 investigated how caregiver and infant behaviours and brain function during dyadic play interactions influence infant visual cognition. This chapter focused on unimodal (look only), bimodal (look and touch) and multimodal (look, touch, and verbalisations/vocalisations) object engagement behaviours. While this chapter reported caregiver-infant brain associations during play, there were no associations with infant visual cognition. To analyse the play interaction data in greater depth, Chapter 5 examined periods in which caregivers were showing multimodal engagement whilst interacting with the same object as their infant (joint attention), and periods in which the infant continued to interact with that same object after caregiver multimodal engagement ended (continued attention). Findings in this chapter reported that greater joint attention between caregivers and infants was associated with greater continued attention in infants. Importantly, this chapter found that reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in caregivers during joint attention was associated with reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in infants during joint activation, longer duration of joint and continued attention, and better visual cognition in infants. These findings contribute to understanding of cortical mechanisms engaged during attention periods in caregiver-infant interactions and how these mechanisms might be linked to visual cognition in infants. However, further investigation is required to better understand longitudinal effects. Therefore, Chapter 6 investigated the impact of caregiver-infant dyadic behaviours on longitudinal changes in visual neurocognition from infancy to toddlerhood. Findings reported developmental changes in behaviour and brain function from infancy to toddlerhood. Furthermore, findings suggested that infants who experienced a shorter duration of joint attention do not show consistency in left temporal engagement from infancy to toddlerhood. In line with findings in Chapter 5, it was suggested that children who demonstrate inconsistency in temporal cortex activation are less able to suppress this region and efficiently recruit neural resources for visual cognition.
Collectively, this thesis highlights the potential mechanisms by which caregiver-infant joint engagement shapes visual cognition and underlying brain function in early life. Ultimately, by shedding light on the role of caregiver behaviours in shaping infant attention and cognitive development, these novel findings have potential implications for informing caregiving practices, early intervention methods, and future visual cognition research
Caregiver involvement on developmental changes in visual cognition: insights from behaviour and brain
No full textEarly in development, infants begin to share attention with mature caregivers, learning about objects and their environments. During this period, there are also considerable increases in visual cognition. Given that this system has far-reaching outcomes impacting the quality of life, it is important to study how this emerges and develops early in the lifespan, as well as what factors might influence its developmental trajectory. This thesis aimed to address these gaps, investigating associations between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition, with insights from dyadic play interactions. To do this, the preferential looking task was used to assess visual cognition at multiple timepoints. Caregiver-infant dyads also completed play interactions with objects. To gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms that underly behaviours during the preferential looking task and dyadic interactions, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was also used to examine brain function.
Previous research has suggested that infants’ ability to sustain attention may be influenced by their caregivers’ own attentional behaviours. Chapter 3 therefore examined if this association was measurable when visual cognition is objectively measured in caregivers and infants using comparable experimental paradigms. Importantly, findings in this chapter reported associations between caregivers’ and infants’ abilities to detect change. Further, infants with caregivers who were better able to detect change showed greater left parietal cortex activation. These findings provide first evidence of a visual neurocognitive association between caregivers and their children in the first year of life. To better understand these associations, Chapter 4 investigated how caregiver and infant behaviours and brain function during dyadic play interactions influence infant visual cognition. This chapter focused on unimodal (look only), bimodal (look and touch) and multimodal (look, touch, and verbalisations/vocalisations) object engagement behaviours. While this chapter reported caregiver-infant brain associations during play, there were no associations with infant visual cognition. To analyse the play interaction data in greater depth, Chapter 5 examined periods in which caregivers were showing multimodal engagement whilst interacting with the same object as their infant (joint attention), and periods in which the infant continued to interact with that same object after caregiver multimodal engagement ended (continued attention). Findings in this chapter reported that greater joint attention between caregivers and infants was associated with greater continued attention in infants. Importantly, this chapter found that reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in caregivers during joint attention was associated with reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in infants during joint activation, longer duration of joint and continued attention, and better visual cognition in infants. These findings contribute to understanding of cortical mechanisms engaged during attention periods in caregiver-infant interactions and how these mechanisms might be linked to visual cognition in infants. However, further investigation is required to better understand longitudinal effects. Therefore, Chapter 6 investigated the impact of caregiver-infant dyadic behaviours on longitudinal changes in visual neurocognition from infancy to toddlerhood. Findings reported developmental changes in behaviour and brain function from infancy to toddlerhood. Furthermore, findings suggested that infants who experienced a shorter duration of joint attention do not show consistency in left temporal engagement from infancy to toddlerhood. In line with findings in Chapter 5, it was suggested that children who demonstrate inconsistency in temporal cortex activation are less able to suppress this region and efficiently recruit neural resources for visual cognition.
Collectively, this thesis highlights the potential mechanisms by which caregiver-infant joint engagement shapes visual cognition and underlying brain function in early life. Ultimately, by shedding light on the role of caregiver behaviours in shaping infant attention and cognitive development, these novel findings have potential implications for informing caregiving practices, early intervention methods, and future visual cognition research
Brain-behaviour associations during interactions between caregivers and infants
No full textPrevious research has shown that infants’ abilities to sustain attention are influenced by caregivers’ attentional behaviours. Here, we inquired whether brain function in infants was linked to brain function in caregivers during attention periods in dyadic interactions, and whether this brain function was associated with visual short-term memory in infants. Caregivers (n = 90, mean age = 33.5 years) and infants (n = 91, mean age = 251.3 days) were recorded for 5- to 7-minutes as they naturalistically played with toys. During these interactions, brain function was recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). To assess visual short-term memory, infants were presented with a preferential looking task. Video recordings were coded for periods of joint attention between caregivers and infants, and periods of continued attention in infants. fNIRS data was processed to extract significant clusters of activation. Our findings revealed that temporo-parietal engagement in both caregivers and infants. Specifically, left superior temporal gyrus activation in caregivers during joint attention was linked to duration of joint attention, duration of continued attention, and visual short-term memory in infants. Our findings highlight cortical mechanisms engaged in caregivers and infants during dyadic interactions, and importantly, how these mechanisms are linked to visual short-term memory
Brain-behaviour associations underlying object engagement during caregiver-infant interactions.
No full textPrevious research has shown that infants’ abilities to engage, re-orient and sustain attention are measurable, aligned with, and influenced by caregivers’ attentional behaviours. Here, we inquired whether infant and caregiver behaviours and brain function differ across types of object engagement and, joint attention and sustained attention periods during dyadic interactions. We also examined whether these caregiver-infant behaviour-brain associations predicted infant visual cognition. Caregivers and infants were recorded for 5- to 7-minutes as they naturalistically played with toys. Brain function was also recorded from both partners using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. In addition, to assess visual cognition, we presented infants with a preferential looking task with a load manipulation. Video recordings were split into 5-second epochs and coded for unimodal (look only), bimodal (look and touch) and multimodal (look, touch, and vocalisation/verbalisation) engagement, and collapsed into caregiver-infant joint attention and infant sustained attention periods. Both caregivers and infants showed greater proportion of bimodal compared to unimodal and multimodal engagement. However, only infants showed modality-specific changes in right-lateralized fronto-parietal cortex suggesting a role in actively shifting between attentional demands. In line with previous findings, greater proportion of caregiver-infant joint attention was associated with greater proportion of infant sustained attention. Further, caregiver-infant associations during joint and sustained attention were observed in the left superior temporal gyrus, a region involved in social cognition. Critically, infants whose caregivers showed greater suppression in this region during joint attention, had better visual cognition. Our findings highlight the importance of studying changes in brain function during caregiver-infant dyadic interactions
Short-read DNA metabarcoding using Nanopore
No full textThe data (.gz) provided is the resulting data from the bioinformatic pipeline that has been analysed in R Studio. A R project is provided with the data and associated code that was used to produce the results, tables and figures.
Nanopore short-read sequencing: A quick, cost-effective and accurate method for DNA metabarcoding
Authors: Aimee L. van der Reis*1, Lynnath E. Beckley2, M. Pilar Olivar3 and Andrew G. Jeffs1
* Corresponding author – [email protected]
1 Institute of Marine Science and School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2 Environmental and Conservation Sciences, Murdoch University, Australia
3 Institut de Ciències del Mar, CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, Barcelona, Spain</p
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