ORAL-RESPIRATORY COORDINATION IN PRETERM INFANTS.
Dept. of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital
Eugene C. Goldfield, Ph.D
The research examines coordination of sucking and breathing as well as acoustics of cry sounds at birth in healthy full term and high risk preterm infants, and how these early behaviors are related to the production of speech sounds in the first year. Longitudinal measures made at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, including experiments which briefly interrupt milk flow to examine stability of coordination. Oral Motor Predictors in Infancy of Early Childhood Apraxia Following Heart Surgery. The research examines whether patterns of coordination between sucking behavior and breathing predict delays in speech production during the first two years in infants who are participating in a clinical trial of hematocrit manipulation during open heart surgery. Reducing Air Swallowing Associated With Infant Feeding. The research examines how the timing of sucking, breathing, and swallowing is related to swallowing air during breast and bottle feeding of healthy infants at age 4-6 weeks. In addition to instrumented recordings, gastric distension and weight are measured to determine how coordination patterns may be related to development of feeding problems.
Grant Support. National Institutes of Health-NICCHD:R01 HD31139 (1994-1998), American Heart Association: 9950097N (1999-2002), Playtex Corporation: 86772 (2000-2003).
Project Sites. Dept. of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Contact Person. Eugene C. Goldfield, PhD, Children's Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, 300 Longwood Ave., Pavilion 159, Boston MA 02115. Eugene.goldfield@tch.harvard.edu . 617-355-8353.
Representative publications.
Goldfield, E.C. (1999): Prosody during disyllable production of full term and preterm infants, Ecological
Psychology, 11, 81-102.
Goldfield, E. C. (2000): Development of infant action systems and exploratory activity. Ecological
Psychology, 12, 303-318.
Goldfield, E. C. (2000): Exploration of vocal tract properties during serial production of vowels by full
term and preterm infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 23, 421-439.
Goldfield, E.C. & Wolff, P.H. (2001): Motor development in infancy. In A. Slater & M. Lewis (Eds.),
Introduction to infant development (pp. 74-97). New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldfield, E.C. & Wolff, P.H.. (in press, 2002): A dynamical systems perspective on infant action and its development. In G. Bremner & A. Slater (Eds.), Theories of infant development. Oxford: Blackwell.