Browsing by Author "Libertus, Melissa E"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Open Access
Inter-Parietal White Matter Development Predicts Numerical Performance in Young Children.
(Learn Individ Differ, 2011-12) Cantlon, Jessica F; Davis, Simon W; Libertus, Melissa E; Kahane, Jill; Brannon, Elizabeth M; Pelphrey, Kevin A
In an effort to understand the role of interhemispheric transfer in numerical development, we investigated the relationship between children's developing knowledge of numbers and the integrity of their white matter connections between the cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum). We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography analyses to test the link between the development of the corpus callosum and performance on symbolic and non-symbolic numerical judgment tasks. We were especially interested in the interhemispheric connections of parietal cortex in 6-year-old children, because regions of parietal cortex have been implicated in the development of numerical skills by several prior studies. Our results revealed significant structural differences between children and adults in the fibers of the corpus callosum connecting the left and right parietal lobes. Importantly, these structural differences were predictive of individual differences among children in performance on numerical judgment tasks: children with poor numerical performance relative to their peers exhibited reduced white matter coherence in the fibers passing through the isthmus of the corpus callosum, which connects the parietal hemispheres.
Open Access
Remote Infant Studies of Early Learning (RISE): Scalable online replications of key findings in infant cognitive development.
(Developmental psychology, 2025-01) Tenenbaum, Elena J; Stone, Caitlin; Vu, My H; Hare, Madeleine; Gilyard, Kristen R; Arunachalam, Sudha; Bergelson, Elika; Bishop, Somer L; Frank, Michael C; Hamlin, J Kiley; Kline Struhl, Melissa; Landa, Rebecca J; Lew-Williams, Casey; Libertus, Melissa E; Luyster, Rhiannon J; Markant, Julie; Sabatos-DeVito, Maura; Sheinkopf, Stephen J; Wagner, Jennifer B; Park, Kayle; Soderling, Anna I; Waterman, Ashleigh K; Grapel, Jordan N; Bermano, Amit; Erel, Yotam; Jeste, Shafali
The current article describes the Remote Infant Studies of Early Learning, a battery intended to provide robust looking time measures of cognitive development that can be administered remotely to inform our understanding of individual developmental trajectories in typical and atypical populations, particularly infant siblings of autistic children. This battery was developed to inform our understanding of early cognitive and language development in infants who will later receive a diagnosis of autism. Using tasks that have been successfully implemented in lab-based paradigms, we included assessments of attention, memory, prediction, word recognition, numeracy, multimodal processing, and social evaluation. This study reports results on the feasibility and validity of administration of this task battery in 55 infants who were recruited from the general population at age 6 months (n = 29; 14 female, 15 male) or 12 months (n = 26; 14 female, 12 male; 62% White, 13% Asian, 1% Black, 1% Pacific Islander, 22% more than one race; 6% Hispanic). Infant looking behavior was recorded during at-home administration of the battery on the family's home computer and automatically coded for attention to stimuli using iCatcher+, an open-access software that assesses infant gaze direction. Results indicate that while some tasks replicated lab-based findings (attention, memory, prediction, and numeracy), others did not (word recognition, multimodal processing, and social evaluation). These findings will inform efforts to refine the battery as we continue to develop a robust set of tasks to improve the understanding of early cognitive development at the individual level in general and clinical populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).