Berkeley Grad

Yes, it’s true.  Tilly was accepted to the UC Berkeley Infant Studies Program!  (pause) Okay, okay, it had nothing to do with her advanced brain function… I’m pretty sure they accept everyone.

Last week I signed Tilly up to participate in a locomotion study at the Berkeley Infant Studies Center.  We received a postcard in the mail saying they were looking for participants, so I contacted them for more info.  It was completely non-invasive, public research on influence of crawling on infant’s brain function.  Our one-time session was an hour long, and consisted of 3 tests.  I got to participate in all of them!

The researchers told me that they were conducting research for babies with Spina Bifida, who have limited range of motion.  They want to see what effects crawling has on brain development, so that they can mimic those effects on babies who can’t crawl.  Pretty amazing!!  I feel like we benefit from research like this every day, so it felt good to give back.  At the end, they presented Tilly with a certificate, and a cute little tee shirt.  It feels good to have a Berkeley Grad in the family!

Here are the descriptions of the 3 studies, in case you are curious:

Self-Produced Locomotion Study Description

Moving Room

The Moving Room is a small-scale “room” without a back wall. The room is built so that any of the five surfaces move around the baby, creating the illusion for the baby of being in motion. While the baby sits securely in a small infant chair, we measure how much your baby moves as a result of the side walls of the room moving.

 Form Extraction

In the Form Extraction, your baby will be placed in an infant chair and will be presented with shapes of different sizes and colors on a tray. We are interested in seeing how your baby plays and manipulates the shapes. 

Joint Visual Attention

For this activity, a research associate will be interacting with your baby by pointing at images of animals projected on a wall. We are interested on whether your baby looks at the images when prompted to and on whether your baby finds these images interesting.