Research Projects

Intersensory redundancy is a crucial mechanism in infants that helps them perceive information accurately when visual and auditory information are temporally synchronous and spatially co-located. Infants born preterm, with intrauterine growth retardation, or with Downs Syndrome may show developmental delays in perception, cognition, and motor domains in the first year of life. These delays may be manifested due to intersensory impairments. Studies have shown that these perceptual mechanisms can become important precursors for emergence of typical perceptual, cognitive, language, and social development. However, there is limited knowledge about the initial processes of intermodal perception in at-risk infants. It is important to investigate if neuromotor and/or sensory delays in these infants will show attenuated perception of intermodal relations if they may be less responsive to synchronicities. The proposed research examines intersensory perception to social and nonsocial events in infants at-risk for developmental delay and those with typical development. The study will use intermodal preferential looking procedure, visual preference, and cumulative looking as dependent measures. The findings will help develop appropriate tools for diagnosing perceptual problems early on, enabling developmental interventions to be administered earlier than in current practice.