Welcome to the Infant Lab
Thank you for your interest in our research.
The Infant Lab team explores infant development, assessing babies' physical (motor) and mental (cognitive) skills. Our research looks at babies who are reaching their developmental milestones on schedule and those who are delayed. Our goal is to develop:
1. Techniques to identify developmental delays sooner.
2.
Early intervention programs that will help infants with delays catch up.
Our team consists of lab director Dr. Jill Heathcock, MPT, PhD, lab coordinator Jessi Sizemore, and many students, who range in experience from high school to graduate school. For more information about our staff, visit the People page.
What We Do
We look into many developmental milestones in infants such as reaching and walking to analyze underlying motor skills and cognition. We typically observe at least two infant populations in each study -- typically developing infants and a population of infants at risk for delay. We have a variety of research interests including very preterm infants, neonatal stroke, and cerebral palsy.
We collect data by bringing infants into the lab for one to ten visits, depending on the specific project. While in the lab, babies perform tasks such as reaching for toys or touching a target. We videotape visits and observe the babies in the lab to determine how motor skills and cognition develop. For more information about lab appointments, visit the What to Expect page.
Why We Do It
Infants are much more resilient than adults and older children. Because they are not fully developed, their brains are very plastic -- able to reorganize and repair or compensate for problems caused by injury or illness.
A medical event in an adult, such as a stroke, can cause lifelong impairment. An infant experiencing a similar medical event has a much better chance of recovery, especially when the condition is diagnosed quickly and an early intervention program is put into place.
Unfortunately, diagnosing delays in infants is extremely difficult because the range of appropriate behavior is so large that delays are difficult to pinpoint. As a result, many infants with delays do not receive the benefits of early intervention. The Infant Lab aims to change that by developing methods to diagnose and intervene early so babies with and at risk for delay can get the best treatment.
