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Transforming The Culture Of Care, Implementation Of Developmentally Supportive Care In The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Taylor Ann Jones

MSU Graduate Theses

The current study examines the implementation of the evidence-based practices of the neonatal integrative developmental care model in the neonatal intensive care unit and how these practices are implemented in reference to initiation method and frequency. In recent years, research examining the effectiveness of individualized, developmentally supportive care to infants in the NICU has demonstrated a variety of positive effects. Although great strides have been made in efforts to provide developmentally supportive care, wide variability and inconsistency remain in the quantity and quality of experience for infants and families in the NICU. Even though a hospital may incorporate developmentally supportive …

Does Cleft Repair Surgery Restore Normal Visual And Neural Responses To Infant Faces?, Rachael Leanne Kee

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Infant faces readily capture our attention and elicit enhanced neural processing, likely due to their evolutionary importance in facilitating bonds with caregivers. Infant facial malformations are associated with a lower degree of parental investment and have been shown to negatively impact early infant-caregiver interactions. Cleft lip or cleft palate is a common facial malformation, estimated to affect 1 in 700 live births worldwide, that is associated with altered visual and neural processing as compared to normal infant faces. Importantly, it is not yet known how craniofacial repair surgery impacts responses to these faces. The current study uses eye tracking and …

Coping Strategies And Self-Compassion As Protective Factors In The Infant And Early Childhood Mental Health Workforce, Megan Wolff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The mental health field experiences high levels of stress, resulting in a greater risk of poor professional quality of life, likely exacerbated by the additional stress associated with COVID-19. The present study examined the effect COVID-19 stress had on the professional quality of life of the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) workforce and whether coping strategies and self-compassion acted as protective factors. Results indicated that higher COVID-19 stress was associated with higher burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) and lower compassion satisfaction (CS). The results also showed that the pathway from COVID-19 stress to burnout was moderated by …

Nicu Experiences Of Adoptive Parents & Desired Preparation, Catherine J. Howe

MSU Graduate Theses

Parents who have newborns admitted into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) have multiple experiences and emotions. Additional social and emotional layers are experienced by adoptive couples when the infant they wish to adopt needs specialized care. This research study was completed to find out what adoptive parents experience in the NICU and what preparation would have been helpful. The method included semi-structured, open-ended interviews with seven couples who adopted a newborn at a Midwestern adoption agency within the past three years and had a NICU experience. The results described adoptive couples’ experiences on the unit, bonding and attachment, fears …

An Interdisciplinary Investigation Of Infant Sleep: How We Study It, What It Means For Other Areas Of Development, And Where Methodological Creativity Can Take Us, Melissa Noel Horger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present dissertation is broken into six chapters. Chapters 2 through 5 comprise four research projects that build upon each other and in both theoretical and methodological ways. The bookends – my introduction and conclusion – are written for an interdisciplinary, even lay audience. In its entirety, the text is centered on infant sleep. First, I describe the functional role of sleep and liken it to a barista working in a coffee shop. Then, I lay out researcher choices – of design and measurement – when incorporating sleep as a facet of a research paradigm. After comparing three measurement techniques …

The Relationship Between Mothers’ Negative Emotional Symptoms And Mother-Infant Interactions During The Covid-19 Pandemic., Kolbie A Vincent

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between mothers' negative emotional symptoms (depression, anxiety, and stress) and mother-infant interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in the early months of the pandemic, when daycares were closed, through an online survey of parents and infants. Participants included 54 mothers of infants 3-34 months of age living in Kentucky. Well-being was measured with the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale – 21 (DASS 21). Questions related to parent-infant interactions included time spent interacting with the infants by reading, singing, playing freely with no set goal, engaging in a meaningful …

Stability Of Emotion Regulation Behaviors Between Infancy And Toddlerhood: Bidirectional Effects Of Overcontrolling Parenting, Meghan Justina Kanya

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Though emotion regulation has been heavily studied for the last several decades, much of the research to this point has neglected to examine the development of specific strategies across time, particularly across infancy and toddlerhood when such behaviors are first emerging and increasing in complexity. Previous work has shown these early emotion regulation abilities to be easily influenced by external factors and, given young children’s heavy reliance on caregivers during this period of time, parenting is often studied as one such factor. Though positive parenting has been consistently shown to promote normal development, overcontrolling parenting has been less readily studied …

Caregiver Cues: The Role Of The Body In Infant-Caregiver Relationships, Anamaria Alvarez

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Touch, gaze, posture, and their synchrony between an infant and their caregiver are the means by which an attachment between the two is formed. The nonverbal elements of communication between the infant-caregiver dyad can explain the nature of their relationship and can serve as a tool for classifying attachment styles. Attachment Theory (AT) proposes that the attachment the infant forms with their caregiver establishes a model for relationships that the infant will carry into adulthood. This paper will untangle the underlying processes of the infant-caregiver relationship to make a case for refining the corporeal lens through which we view AT. …

Role-Differentiated Bimanual Manipulations Efficiency: The Difference In Speed For Rdbms Based On Age, Toy-Type, And Infant Hand Preference, Sarai Mikal Cortina

Theses and Dissertations

Role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM) is a complex behavior requiring the complementary movement of two hands to achieve a common goal. The current study investigated the relation of RDBM efficiency (speed to complete a successful RDBM) with hand preference, toy type (simple/difficult), age, and hand used to perform the RDBM. This study observed 46 infants between the ages of 9 to 14 months, each with a different hand preference category. Changes in RDBM efficiency across time were examined across different hand preference groups for RDBMs performed on simple toys using the right hand. The analysis revealed that early-right preference infants had …

The Origins And Development Of Visual Categorization, Laura Cabral

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Forming categories is a core part of human cognition, allowing us to make quickly make inferences about our environment. This thesis investigated some of the major theoretical interpretations surrounding the neural basis of visual category development. In adults, there are category-selective regions (e.g. in ventral temporal cortex) and networks (which include regions outside traditional visual regions—e.g. the amygdala) that support visual categorization. While there has been extensive behavioural work investigating visual categorization in infants, the neural sequence of development remains poorly understood. Based on behavioral experiments, one view holds that infants are initially using subcortical structures to recognize faces. Indeed, …

Does Infant Negative Affect Moderate The Impact Of Parenting On Effortful Control? A Test Of The Differential Susceptibility Hypothesis, Anton Petrenko

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Parenting and early temperament characteristics have previously been shown to impact development of children’s self-regulation, which is in turn linked to a variety of developmental outcomes. However, few studies have evaluated interactions between difficult temperament and parenting, and only four published studies have specifically tested whether infants’ difficult temperament serves as a maker of differential susceptibility to parenting on self-regulatory development. The current study evaluated whether infant negative affectivity (NA) serves as a marker of differential susceptibility to positive and negative parenting on levels of effortful control (EC) at 18 months, which is at an earlier time point than has …

Infant Object Recognition: Two- And Three-Dimensional Visual Processing, Alexandra Chelsea Romano

Masters Theses

Visual attention and recognition memory in infancy are highly dependent on the type of stimulus the infant is familiarized to and the conditions of familiarization. For example, in studies that initially exposed infants to test stimuli in laboratory settings (e.g., Courchesne, Ganz, & Norcia, 1981; Reynolds & Richards, 2005), the Negative Central (Nc) event-related potential (ERP) component associated with infant visual attention has shown greater amplitude for novel compared to familiar stimuli. Conversely, when initial stimulus exposure occured outside of the laboratory and the stimulus was highly familiar, studies have shown greater amplitude Nc to familiar compared to novel stimuli …

Infants' Perception Of Faces In Face-Like And Ambiguous Images., Lauren E Dale

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Faces are special to infants. Infants look longer at faces than objects, human faces than non-human faces, and upright faces compared to inverted faces. The objective of this study was to see if infants demonstrated signs of pareidolia. Pareidolia is the ability to see a face in a non-face object, such as a face in a cloud. Previous research has shown that adults see faces in everyday objects, but less is known about infants' perception of such images. In the present study, infants 7-9 months old (N = 47) were tested. Infants were shown eight images, which adults had …

Infants' & Toddlers' Social Evaluations Of Trustworthy And Untrustworthy Faces, Ashley Lyons

Doctoral Dissertations

Our understanding of the social world is highly influenced by the fast and automatic evaluations we make about others based on their facial appearance. The goal of the current studies is to explore the developmental origins of the particular face-trait evaluation of ‘trustworthiness.’ Experiment 1 tested whether 10-month-old infants differentiate between faces that adults rate as trustworthy and untrustworthy, and if they have a preference for one over the other in a crawling task. Experiment 2 tested whether 10-month-olds have implicit expectations about the social behavior of characters with trustworthy of untrustworthy faces in a looking-time task that presents infants …

Caffeine Combined With Sedative/Anesthetic Drugs Used In Neonatal Medicine And Apoptotic Neurotoxicity In Developing Mouse Brain, Omar Hosea Cabrera

Dissertations

Each year, millions of premature babies are exposed to sedative/anesthetic drugs (SADs) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Acute exposure to SADs triggers widespread apoptosis in the developing brain of rodents and non-human primates. Furthermore, premature infants are administered caffeine (CAF) to treat respiratory dysfunction. Mounting evidence suggests that CAF may be neurotoxic and, when given in combination with SADs, potentiates SAD-induced cell death. However, the apoptotic interaction of CAF and SAD co-exposure is poorly understood. In a series of studies, I report that CAF combined with the NICU SADs midazolam, ketamine, or fentanyl is more neurotoxic to the …

The Modulating Role Of Motor Action Anticipation In Relation To Visual Attention To A Scene, Rebecca Faith Wiener

Masters Theses

This study investigates how visual attention to a scene is modified when the actor has a reaching goal or not. Thirty-six 7-month-olds were recruited, with 18 in a reaching group and 18 in a non-reaching group. Infants in both groups were presented with objects out of their reaching space until they accumulated approximately six seconds of active looking as measured by an eye-tracker. For the infants in the non-reaching group, the trial ended after the six seconds. For the reaching group, the object was then moved into the infants’ reaching space where they could reach for it. We were interested …

Infants' Sensitivity To Fine Durational Cues In Speech Perception, Alyssa K. Kuiack

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Previous research has indicated that infants as young as 3 days of age show sensitivity to prosodic stress patterns and can use this information to distinguish word boundaries (Christophe et al., 1994). Older infants have also exhibited an ability to use prosodic stress patterns to segment streams of speech (Echols et al., 1997) and have shown a preference for samples of speech with the patterns of prosody displayed by their native language versus the prosodic patterns typical of other non-native languages (Werker & Tees 1984, Juscyzk et al. 1993). Adults have demonstrated the ability of language discrimination based strictly on …

Infants' Memory For Melody And Words In Sung Songs, Leanna De Lucia

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Past research suggests that infants' recollection of melodic information is hindered when linguistic and melodic properties of music are presented simultaneously over a short duration of time. The purpose of the present study is to examine infants' memory for melody and lyrics when the two stimuli are presented simultaneously over a prolonged exposure time. The design is a head turn preference paradigm. Thirty 6- to 8- month-old infants were familiarized to a song at home for a seven-day period. On day eight, infants were tested and randomly assigned to one of two conditions. The Melody Condition compared the familiar melody …

The Effect Of Local Element Density On Processing Of Visual Hierarchical Patterns: An Infant Erp Study, Sara M. Mosteller

Masters Theses

Previous research with infants, children, and adults has shown that global, or configural, information is processed before local, or featural, information in high density visual hierarchical patterns (Freeseman, Colombo, & Coldren, 1993; Ghim & Eimas, 1988; Kimchi, 1988; Navon, 1981; Navon, 1977). The current study used event-related potential to determine if a well documented bias toward global processing in infancy can be disrupted when the number and density of local elements is reduced through increasing the distance between elements. Infant responses were compared between high and low density conditions to global and local novel patterns and to familiar patterns. A …

The Ontogeny Of Whistle Production In Infant Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) During The First Thirty Days Of Life, Brittany Leigh Jones

Master's Theses

The manner in which dolphin calves acquire their whistle repertoire is largely unknown. This paper focuses on whistle development in four bottlenose dolphin calves during the first thirty days of life in order to increase our understanding of the early emergence of whistles and whistle-like vocalizations. The acoustic parameters of whistle-type vocalizations (i.e., whistles and whistlesquawks) that coincided with a bubblestream emission from the focal calf and/or its mother were analyzed, as were the behavioral states of the mother-calf pair during the emission of such vocals. Mother and calf whistle rates are inversely related, with the mother whistling more often …

Electrophysiological Cross-Modality Comparisons Of Infant Individual Differences In Holistic Processing And Selective Inhibition, Matthew Singh

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Arousal Induction On Infants' Tempo Preferences, Erin G. Eisen

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Previous research has demonstrated that infants have a natural preference to listen to fast temporal sequences over intermediate temporal sequences (Steffler, 2012, unpublished thesis). The present study seeks to explore whether or not infant tempo preferences are context-dependent, specifically examining the effect of arousal levels on tempo preferences. In the current study, 6- to 8-month-old infants' preference for tempo was evaluated using a head-turn preference procedure, following an arousal induction phase, in which the infants' environment was altered with the aim of lowering their physiological arousal. Infants showed a significant 3-way interaction between side of presentation, first stimulus presentation, and …

5- And 8-Month-Olds’ Visual Exploration Of 2d Scenes: The Relative Impact Of Object Size, Object Detail, And Depth Cue On Infants’ Visual Attention, Yu Guan

Doctoral Dissertations

How infants visually explore complex scenes containing objects varying in size, depth cues, and amount of detail is still an open question. When infants are presented with a complex scene, we do not know which dimensions of the scene are more likely to catch their attention first, and which are more likely to sustain their looking duration the most. This study aimed to investigate how infants’ explore 2D displays containing different combinations of object size, depth cues, and detail.

In experiment 1, forty infants (twenty of 5 months old and twenty of 8 months old) were presented with stimuli containing …

The Effect Of Inversion On Infant Attention Disengagement From Faces., Jessica Pence

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Infants’ Responses To Affect In Music And Speech, Daniel K. Feinberg

Pitzer Senior Theses

Existing literature demonstrates that infants can discriminate between categories of infant-directed (ID) speech based on the speaker’s intended message – that is, infants recognize the difference between comforting and approving ID speech, and treat different utterances from within these two categories similarly. Furthermore, the literature also demonstrates that infants understand many aspects of music and can discriminate between happy and sad music. Building on these findings, the present study investigated whether exposure to happy or sad piano music would systematically affect infants’ preferences for comforting or approving ID speech. Five- to nine-month-old infants’ preferences for comforting or approving ID speech …

Infant Perceptions Of Mixed-Race Faces: An Exploration Of The Hypodescent Rule In 8.5 Month-Old Infants, Sophie Beiers

Pitzer Senior Theses

Studies have shown that adults often categorize mixed-race individuals of White and non-White descent as members of the non-White racial group, an effect said to be reminiscent of the “hypodescent” or “one-drop rule.” This effect has not yet been thoroughly studied in infants, although 9-month-old infants have been shown to be able to categorize mono-racial faces into different racial groups. In the present study, the perception of mixed-race White and Asian/Asian American faces was studied in sixteen 8.5-month-old infants. The infants were randomly assigned to two stimulus groups. The stimuli were the photographed faces of female college students who had …

Revisiting The Causal Link Between Finite Cognitive Capacity And Perseveration: A Dynamic Systems Account, Benjamin Craddock

Masters Theses

The current study revisits the causal link between finite cognitive capacity and infant perseveration originally put forth by Berger (2004) wherein perseverative errors resulted from a limited amount of cognitive resources. A dynamic systems perspective was used to test the interaction of a limited cognitive capacity and task difficulty by manipulating the contextual layout of Berger’s stair A-not-B paradigm (i.e. from 90-degrees to 180-degrees). Two groups of infants, differing in walking experience but not in biological age, were presented the task of descending A-side 5 consecutive times and to B-side on the 6th trial. Perseveration was not seen in either …

Maternal Representations Of Attachment As Affected By Conditions Of Proximity And Separation, Karen V. Monaco

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Effects Of Embodiment On Perceptual And Affective Responses To Infant Crying, Jennifer B. Bisson

Master's Theses

Three experiments were conducted to investigate how changes in bodily states might be related to perceptions of infant vocalizations. In Study 1, participants were asked to hold a pencil between their lips, mimicking a smile, while listening to infant crying. Although there were no embodied effects for perceptual ratings, results indicated that this manipulation decreased participants’ self-reported, negative affect. In Study 2, participants were played both infant crying and birdsong while exposed to similar embodied manipulations, including activation of muscles related to approach and withdrawal behavior. There were no embodied effects for ratings of crying or for affect. Comparing Study …

Effects Of Delayed Auditory Feedback On Young Infants’ Crying, Sarah M. Sanborn

Master's Theses

Neural control of newborn crying has typically been considered to originate primarily in the lower brain centers, although support for this assumption is limited. To address this, the present study manipulated newborn infants’ perceptual experience during a cry bout through use of delayed auditory feedback (DAF). Atypical cry productions during DAF would suggest that newborn crying is under higher levels of cortical control than previously assumed. Infants’ spontaneous crying was recorded for 2 minutes at 4 weeks of age (n=16) and again at 8 weeks of age (n=17) using an ABA design, alternating synchronous feedback with DAF. Standard repeated-measures 2 …