Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Rutgers, State University of New Jersey
CARTER NEUROCOGNITIVE RESEARCH CENTER AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
Newark, New Jersey
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience
197 University Avenue
Newark, NJ 07102
April Benasich, PhD, Director
Tel: 973-352-1080 x3216
Fax: 973-353-1760
Email: babylab@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Web: http://babylab.rutgers.edu/studies/carter.html
The Carter Center of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University , conducts basic research into the evaluation of early cognitive and language development of children with both language delays and motor impairment, such as children with holoprosencephaly.
Our prototype early assessment battery has been designed to allow evaluation of early cognitive and language development (especially understanding of spoken language). Our goals in developing this battery are: (1) to allow us to give families feedback regarding the developmental abilities of their children; (2) to communicate with medical professionals about the developmental range and abilities of children; and (3) to monitor changes in developmental milestones, particularly in response to treatment or intervention protocols.
There are two elements to the battery:
First, we have developed a scale, “The Carter Neurocognitive Assessment” to assess children's early skills in four areas: (1) social awareness and understanding; (2) auditory perception, discrimination, and understanding of spoken language; (3) visual attention and interpretation of the environment; and (4) development of vocal skills (involving non-speech sounds) and verbal skills (involving speech sounds). We examine a series of developmental skills chosen to be appropriate for the population of children we study to allow a fine-grained documentation of their developmental milestones. This element of the battery can be used in the clinical centers.
Second, we have developed a battery of tasks to be administered in our research facility to assess the fundamental processing skills which underlie cognitive and language development. The processing skills assessed have been found to be good predictors of cognitive and language outcomes in different populations of children, particularly children in high-risk groups from premature birth or low socioeconomic circumstances. As well as being predictive of children's potential language and cognitive outcome, there is evidence that early processing abilities determine the extent to which children respond to intervention. A more specific association may exist between the early ability to process brief, rapidly-changing auditory information and later language skills. These auditory processing skills are assessed as well as children's ability to process information in the auditory, visual, tactual-visual, and auditory-visual domains. A range of tasks is included that are designed to provide information about different skills: speed and efficiency of information processing, short- and long-term memory, learning of contingencies, and intersensory integration. In addition, other tasks assess receptive language, discrimination between the different speech sounds (phonemes) that make up words (using eye-gaze to objects), and symbolic representation (using a matching-to-sample task). Most of these tasks require an eye-gaze response, although we can tailor the response to a child’s individual capabilities.
We are introducing measures of brain activity (time-locked cortical evoked response potentials, ERPs) and an automated system for tracking eye-gaze into our assessment. In the future, we hope to adapt some of the techniques used in this assessment battery, and therefore suitable for these children, into intervention techniques.
Our group has also been involved in fostering intervention research by founding the Developmental Neurocognitive Research Consortium. The consortium will continue to meet and collaborate, in order to encourage and accelerate interest in conducting research into the assessment of, and intervention for, children with a range of developmental disabilities including holoprosencephaly.
April A. Benasich, Ph.D., Director
Dr. April A. Benasich received her Ph.D.s from New York University in Experimental and Clinical Psychology (1987). She also has a BSN in Nursing and extensive clinical experience in infant and toddler developmental/neuropsychological testing.
Current Research Projects
Dr. Benasich's current research, at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN), focuses on perceptual-cognitive abilities (habituation, recognition memory, rapid auditory processing) in high risk or neurologically impaired infants as predictors of later cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral outcomes. Her research program examines the impact of individual differences in early processing abilities, low birthweight, prematurity, and familial genetic contributions on developmental trajectories. All of the prospective, longitudinal research is conducted on infants from 4 through 60 months. At present, she is investigating auditory temporal processing in early infancy (shown to be a major predictor of language impairment and dyslexia in older children). The use of infant populations at risk for developmental delays, including infants with focal brain lesions due to prenatal stroke and very low birth-weight preterm infants who have sustained intraventricular hemorrhages, allows examination of patterns of behavioral deficit in conjunction with timing, extent, and location of brain lesion. Examination of auditory evoked potentials, a new research initiative, will provide converging noninvasive physiological measures to current behavioral measures. In addition, Dr. Benasich has developed a prototype early assessment battery (including both behavioral and electrophysiological measures), based on previous work in her lab, that will allow evaluation of early cognitive and language development in nonverbal, motor impaired children with early (or genetic ) brain insult. Dr. Benasich's basic research seeks to uncover the early neural mechanisms necessary for normal cognitive and language development and she is among the first to link deficits in infant temporal processing to later language and cognitive impairments.
April A. Benasich Ph.D.
Professor of Neuroscience
Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
197 University Avenue
Newark NJ 07102 USA
Phone (973) 353-1080 x3204
Fax (973) 353-1760
