TIRED OF NETFLIX? LOOKING FOR SOMETHING FUN & EDUCATIONAL TO DO FROM HOME?
Please join us for a virtual COFFEE TALK and add interest to your day! A researcher from our Babylab & ToddlerLab will talk about their research, there will be a chance to ask questions and chat to researchers and parents.
***We will be back to present more of our research in the Autumn. Enjoy the summer and we look forward to welcoming you back to our talks in October!***
All our past speakers are listed below and recordings are available (just click the links).
Past speakers:
13/7/2021 - Final year PhD student Aude Carteron discusses results from her online study on routine action control in school-aged children and adults. During their school years children must consistently perform the same daily routines (having breakfast, preparing their school backpack, etc.) while sometimes facing a changing environment or distractions. How does the mind guide action control in such routines? And how does this change throughout the school years? Aude shares insights gained from an ice-cream making computer game in which more than 70 children took part. Aude's Talk
6/7/2021 - Dr Rianne Haartsen and Ellie Braithwaite discuss the global Braintools project! Braintools aims to develop a toolkit for measuring development in locations all over the world. The goal is to create a toolkit optimised for babies and children in low-income settings such as in India and The Gambia. Rianne and Ellie present results from the UK where they collected brain activity (EEG) and eye-tracking information from 2.5 - 4 year olds at two different timepoints, to help assess how consistent and reliable measures were. They show findings that indicate good consistency in brain measures across time points and how that has helped with measuring development in other parts of the world. Braintools Talk
15/6/2021 - Having recently completed her PhD, Dr Louisa Gossé joined us to discuss her cutting edge research into infancy and sleep. Have you ever wondered what happens in your baby's brain when they are smiling in their sleep? Are they replaying experiences they had during the day? Or are they dreaming? In this coffee talk Louisa explains her ongoing research into studying the sleeping infant brain and what we can learn about development by looking at a baby's brain during sleep. She shows methods we can use to look at the brain during sleep and introduces her new study into dreaming in development. Louisa's Talk Louisa on CBBC Operation Ouch kid's TV! (10min 25sec in) Email Louisa to take part in her infancy sleep or dream research lgosse01@mail.bbk.ac.uk
30/3/2021 - CBCD collaborator and King's College London postdoc Tessel Bazelmans studies the role physiology, specifically heart rate, plays during the early development of autism. She discusses how we measure physiology, what it can tell us, and why we are interested in physiology in relation to autism. She presents research findings from a sample of preschool aged children with an autism diagnosis and infants who have an elevated likelihood for autism. Tessel's Talk
16/3/2021 - Cécile Gal is interested in how infants actively shape their own learning experience: they don't just passively absorb the information around them but engage with what interests them most and then disengage once they've learned from it. She presents the results of one study with 10-month-old infants. This study looked at what infants' brain activity during a screen-based task in the lab can tell us about infants' distractibility, both during the task and in their everyday life, as reported by parents in questionnaires. Cécile's Talk
2/3/2021 - Giulia Serino presented her project investigating the role of distraction during development. In everyday life, distraction has become synonymous with poor attentional abilities or reflective of chaotic home environments. Giulia's project challenges this idea and aims to investigate whether distraction in toddlerhood can be re-conceptualised as an attentional trait, whose extremes – either an over response to sensory stimulation or an inability to detect and orient attention towards salient and informative stimuli – are equally detrimental for adaptation and learning. Giulia plans to work with 3-5 year olds. Giulia's Talk Her online study will be available soon!
16/2/2021 - Anna Gui studies how the infant brain learns to pay special attention to social stimuli such as faces and voices and whether genetic factors interfere with this developmental process. Anna investigates polygenic scores and infant brain activity in response to social stimuli to predict developmental outcomes. Anna's Talk (Apologies to those who joined irl for the abrupt ending - we were so enthralled with Anna's research we ran out of time!) Read more about the BONDS study
2/2/2021 - Penny Bounia-Mastrogianni explained her online study into the effects of curiosity on decision-making across development. When adults have to choose between engaging in a familiar, enjoyable activity or trying a new one, they often stick with the ones they know. Children and teens, however, tend to explore new options out of curiosity, even at a cost to the ones they know and are keen on. Penny discusses her online study, which looks into how children (5-9 years old), adolescents (13-16 years old) and adults balance between curiosity and reward when aiming for a goal. Check out Penny's study here! Penny's Talk
26/1/2021 - Lisanne Schröer discussed her ongoing research study with toddlers and preschoolers investigating how they plan actions. Specifically, she's interested in whether toddlers are able to take into account multiple constraints to achieve an overarching goal, and the role of working memory in this type of development. Lisanne's Talk
1/12/2020 - Amy Goodwin & Julia Koziel from King's College London explored how to capture neurodiversity in remote data collection. They discussed development of touchscreen games that aim to measure cognitive, emotional, and sensory processes in children aged 3 – 6 years old. The games have been designed to be administered at home with parents/caregivers, and with the goal of being accessible to all children, including children with different neurodevelopmental conditions, learning difficulties and/or intellectual disability. Click here for Amy & Julia's Talk. Click here to learn more about 'Pip and the Brain Explorers App for 2.5-6 year olds' If you'd like to download the app, please click here for Apple and here for Android.
24/11/2020 - Alicja Brzozowska discussed her research into the effect of parental touch on infant development. Some parents spend more time cuddling, stroking and kissing their babies than others. Animal research suggests that caregiver touch regulates a baby's arousal and affects how they engage with a novel environment. Alicja explains her project examining if these effects are present in human infants from 6-13 months. Alicja's Talk
17/11/2020 - Olatz Ojinaga discussed her research investigating early brain development in babies with Down Syndrome, and how brain connectivity may help us understand differences in development later on. Olatz's Talk
10/11/2020 - Aislinn Bower presented her research involving creation of a smartphone app for parents to record developmental info about their child. She discussed the benefits and challenges and gave a preview of the app. Aislinn's Talk
28/7/2020 - Elena Throm is part of the BONDS team and explained how she studies brain activity in real time to understand which parts of a baby's environment an individual baby is most interested in. Her online study for 4-8 month olds is available to do at home, and seeks to identify the sounds that babies like best. Elena's Talk
21/7/2020 - Maheen Siddiqui's research involves developing new methods to measure brain activity. She discussed the novel system developed and tested on infants during her PhD. The NIRS system can tell us specifically how energy is used in the brain and why this is particularly important in order to understand atypical brain development. Maheen's Talk
14/7/2020 - Teresa Del Bianco discussed using a mobile tool, that gives children substantial freedom of movement, to record brain activity in the field. She shared her experiences of using it in Cape Town, South Africa, and the challenges and benefits of bringing lab equipment to the real world. Teresa's Talk.
30/6/2020 - Rianne Haartsen highlighted how we use EEG at the Babylab to measure brain activity and communication and how we are investigating this in infants with older siblings with autism. She described her research analysing brain activity in infants recorded while they watch women singing nursery rhymes compared to their brain activity recorded while watching toys. Rianne's Talk
23/6/2020 - Aude Carteron discussed all things action control. For example, how do children get better at controlling their actions - from fetching their favourite toy to preparing a lunch box? Aude highlighted the function of action control in children and discussed how researchers study the topic, from what is known to why it matters. Aude's Talk
9/6/2020 - Brittney Chere explained her highly topical research project looking into the influence of noise and distraction on children’s ability to learn and pay attention in various settings. Brittney discussed her previous Babylab study that looked at this topic in babies, and her upcoming online study with teenagers. Brittney's Talk Brittney's Online study for 11-18 year olds
2/6/2020 - Louisa Gossé discussed her research into infant sleep using various techniques including fNIRS, eeg, actigraphs and eye-tracking. If you ever wonder what happens in your baby's brain when they're sleeping, this talk is for you! Louisa's Talk
19/5/2020 - Claire Essex introduced her research using an eye-tracker to investigate the possible impact of cartoons on attention and learning in children. Kid’s cartoons often include weird breaks with reality that are believed to entertain children and provide an opportunity for learning. But are these fantastical moments too much for the developing brain to process? Claire's Talk.
12/5/2020 - Lisanne Schröer talked about her work with motion capture and Duplo. She discussed how blocks and 'building a house' can help us understand action planning in young children. Click here for Lisanne's Talk