A5077470407- Action Observation and Synchronization
- Reading and Literacy Development
- Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Hearing Impairment and Communication
- Neonatal and fetal brain pathology
- EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Language Development and Disorders
- Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Child Development and Digital Technology
- COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Infant Development and Preterm Care
- Child and Animal Learning Development
- Multisensory perception and integration
- Resilience and Mental Health
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Speech and dialogue systems
- Family and Disability Support Research
- Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Spectroscopy and Chemometric Analyses
- Health, Environment, Cognitive Aging
- Language and cultural evolution
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
2022-2025
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2019-2025
Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences
2021-2024
Vassar College
2019-2020
Fetal, infant, and toddler (FIT) neuroimaging researchers study early brain development to gain insights into neurodevelopmental processes identify markers of neurobiological vulnerabilities target for intervention. However, the field has historically excluded people from global majority countries marginalized communities in FIT research. Inclusive representative samples are essential generalizing findings across modalities, such as magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography,...
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how early developing brain gives rise cognition and behavior. However, infant fMRI poses significant methodological challenges that have hampered wider adoption. The present work takes stock after collection of a substantial amount data across multiple studies from two labs at different institutions. We leveraged these glean insights on participant recruitment, experimental design, acquisition could be...
As scientists interested in fetal, infant, and toddler (FIT) neurodevelopment, our research questions often focus on how individual children differ their neurodevelopment the predictive value of those differences for long-term neural behavioral outcomes. Measuring interpreting can present challenges: Is there a "standard" way human brain to develop? How do semantic, practical, or theoretical constraints that we place studying "development" influence measure interpret differences? While it is...
Creating engaging, well-controlled neuroimaging tasks for children can be difficult and time-consuming. To simplify accelerate the process, we developed an automated pipeline that combines existing audio generation animation tools to generate customizable audiovisual stimuli from text input, such as studies of language comprehension. The consists two components: first generates auditory using Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, second uses Adobe Character Animator create video in which animated...
An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience: the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors challenges. Variation trait mindfulness, one's disposition attend experiences with an open nonjudgmental attitude, may be individual difference that supports resilience. In this study, we investigated whether mindfulness was related resilience response stressful changes education home-life during COVID-19 pandemic United States. We conducted a correlational study...
Language provides a rich source of information about other people's thoughts and feelings. Consequently, delayed access to language may influence conceptual development in Theory Mind (ToM). We use functional magnetic resonance imaging behavioral tasks study ToM child (n = 33, 4-12 years old) adult 36) fluent signers American Sign (ASL), characterize neural responses during ASL movie-viewing tasks. Participants include deaf children whose first exposure was up 7 12). Neural stories...
Abstract Objectives School-based mindfulness interventions in children have shown benefits to child well-being. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of a remote, app-based intervention for promoting well-being children. Method We conducted randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two control groups examine effects an 8-week U.S. ages 8–10. compared pre-post between using Inner Explorer app, and audiobook interventions. The 279 who participated were assessed on self-report measures anxiety...
Vocabulary knowledge is foundational to educational success, but significant gaps exist between students from disadvantaged backgrounds or those with reading disabilities and their peers. These have cascading effects, as children lower vocabulary are less likely acquire new words through independent responsive instruction methods like read-alouds explicit teaching. The effectiveness of relies on individualization, which typically places substantial demands educators thereby hinders the...
Most autistic individuals have sustained, focused interests in particular topics or activities. In some cases, these special been shown to motivate communicative behaviors, a domain which many experience challenges. We conducted pilot study with 15 children (ages 8.18 - 13.27 years, mean(SD)= 11.17(1.62), 3 female/11 male/1 nonbinary), comparing brain responses elicited by short narratives tailored individuals' generic, non-tailored narratives. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging...
Much of the language we encounter in our everyday lives comes form conversation, yet majority research on neural basis comprehension has used input from only one speaker at a time. Twenty adults were scanned while passively observing audiovisual conversations using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In block-design task, participants watched 20 s videos puppets speaking either to another puppet (the dialogue condition) or directly viewer monologue condition), audio was comprehensible...
Intervention studies with developmental samples are difficult to implement, in particular when targeting demographically diverse communities. Online have the potential examine efficacy of highly scalable interventions aimed at enhancing development, and address some barriers faced by underrepresented communities for participating research. During COVID-19 pandemic, we executed a fully remote randomized controlled trial (RCT) language intervention third fourth grade students (N = 255; age...
Abstract Cognition is shaped by individual experiences and interests. However, to study cognition in the brain, researchers typically use generic stimuli that are same across all individuals. Language, particular, animated motivated several highly personal factors not accounted for neuroimaging designs, such as “interest” a topic. Due its inherently idiosyncratic nature, it unknown how interest topic modulates language processing brain. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging...
Language provides a rich source of information about other people’s thoughts and feelings. Consequently, delayed access to language may influence conceptual development in Theory Mind (ToM). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging behavioral tasks study ToM child (n=33, 4-12 years old) adult (n=36) fluent signers American Sign (ASL), provide the first characterization neural responses during an ASL task. Participants included deaf children whose exposure was up 7 (n=12). Neural stories...
Abstract Much of the language we encounter in our everyday lives comes form conversation, yet majority research on neural basis comprehension has used input from only one speaker at a time. 20 adults were scanned while passively observing audiovisual conversations using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In block-design task, participants watched 20-second videos puppets speaking either to another puppet (the “dialogue” condition) or directly viewer (“monologue”), audio was...
Vocabulary knowledge is foundational to educational success, but significant gaps exist between students from disadvantaged backgrounds or those with reading disabilities and their peers. These have cascading effects, as children lower vocabulary are less likely acquire new words through independent responsive instruction methods like read-alouds explicit teaching. The effectiveness of relies on individualization, which typically places substantial demands educators thereby hinders the...
Vocabulary knowledge is foundational to educational success, but significant gaps exist between students from disadvantaged backgrounds or those with reading disabilities and their peers. These have cascading effects, as children lower vocabulary are less likely acquire new words through independent responsive instruction methods like read-alouds explicit teaching. The effectiveness of relies on individualization, which typically places substantial demands educators thereby hinders the...
An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience, the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors challenges. Variation trait mindfulness, one’s disposition attend experiences with an open nonjudgmental attitude, may be individual difference that supports resilience. In this study, we investigated whether mindfulness was related resilience response stressful changes education home-life during COVID-19 pandemic United States. We conducted a correlational study...
Intervention studies with developmental samples are difficult to implement, in particular when targeting demographically diverse communities. Online have the potential examine efficacy of highly scalable interventions aimed at enhancing development, and address some barriers faced by underrepresented communities for participating research. During COVID-19 pandemic, we executed a fully remote randomized controlled trial (RCT) language intervention third fourth-grade students (N = 255; age...
ABSTRACT Cognition is shaped by individual experiences and interests. However, to study cognition in the brain, researchers typically use generic stimuli that are same across all individuals. Language, particular, animated motivated several highly personal factors not accounted for neuroimaging designs, such as “interest” a topic. Due its inherently idiosyncratic nature, it unknown how interest topic modulates language processing brain. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging...