Previous Research Spurs New Study on Infants’ Motor, Cognitive Development

Prior to joining the Rangos School of Health Sciences over a year ago, Dr. Regina Harbourne completed research that focused on infants with basic neurological disorders that affected their motor development—specifically, learning how to sit up, which is a major benchmark in a baby’s development.

What Harbourne didn’t expect was to find that the study’s intervention not only improved the infants’ motor development (with sitting), it also advanced their cognitive development. To further investigate the effects of physical therapy intervention on the motor and cognitive development of infants with neuromotor disorders, she applied for and garnered a grant for $32,778 from the Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement (CURE). The research will also allow Harbourne to better understand the interaction between early movement and early-thinking skills.

“Sitting is a big turning point for babies because they are able to orient in the same way as the adult world, and their hands get freed up so they can manipulate things. That is a point where they are really able to start to learn in a whole new way,” said Harbourne, assistant professor of physical therapy.

According to Harbourne, infants typically begin to sit up between six and eight months of age. “Babies with a neuromotor disorder don’t sit up easily,” explained Harbourne. “When these delays occur, it’s important to intervene as early as possible—the earlier, the faster changes can be made in their progress.”

For this study, infants approximately 11 months old who have a diagnosed neuromotor disorder and have not yet learned to sit on their own will each participate for three months during which a physical therapist will work each week with the child in the home. The study takes place in the home to get more accurate results. “It’s different for infants that come into a new or unknown environment—babies are very aware of something new, so they end up looking all over the place and all around,” said Harbourne.

The babies will be randomly split into two groups. One group’s intervention will include giving the infants physical help during which parents and therapists will actually lift them up, initiate movement for them and aide them in moving around. The other group’s intervention will practice movement with a problem-solving focus such as working with toy stacking cups. This group will be given hints, but will not receive help with their movement. Both interventions utilize standard practice methods.

In addition, each infant will each wear an eye tracker that includes a camera that follows and records eye movement while another camera shows and records what the baby is seeing.

“Using the tracker, you can see exactly where the baby’s eye is focusing. We’ll look at how quickly the babies move their focus of vision from one thing to another,” said Harbourne. “We will measure the timing of all of the visual things, how much they look at their hand before they reach for something or do they just look at the object, and we’ll compare between the two groups. The information will also help us understand exactly what type of thinking processes are changing for the infants.”

The babies will be tested prior to the study, then each month and one month after they complete the study.

In Harbourne’s previous study, the group that received no help with movement did better with problem solving than those who did receive assistance. “Both groups made a big motor-development jump,” said Harbourne. “But given the intervention in which the child must do some problem-solving tasks—they get better at solving the problems as well as with sitting.

“It’s always important for children to learn to move, but what we’re finding out is that moving helps you get smarter, it helps your cognition, and that’s the real importance of this study,” said Harbourne.