Dr Madhavilatha Maganti - The multimodal nature of early experiences in high and low-risk infants: what’s going on in their tiny minds?

Endowed with a mind and body of their own, infants are capable to explore the world around them and achieve an intelligence that seems amazing. How do infants achieve such complex abilities? How do they explore the world around them and pick up the regularities in the environment? How do they begin to learn language? These questions have laid conceptual foundations for understanding how the rich multisensory nature of early experiences are a major driver of change in the complex heterogeneous system of cognition from an embodiment perspective. The idea that intelligence emerges in the interaction of an organism with an environment and as a result of sensory-motor activity is the main thesis of the embodiment hypothesis (Smith, 2005). Applying this hypothesis, one of our lab’s goal is to examine the multimodal nature of the sensory-motor system for identifying early markers of neurodevelopmental differences in high-risk infants. 

In this talk, I will discuss findings from two of our lab studies focusing specifically on clinical implications. In the study on early origins of multimodal attentional processes from naturalistic observations of face-to-face interactions, we examine how multisensory redundancies are used in caregiver interactions with typically-developing infants and with infants who are at relatively high risk for developing attention difficulties. Furthermore, we also examine the extent to which these infants are attentive and responsive to caregivers with early communicative behaviours. In the follow-up study, we use looking-time measures from eye tracking using intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP)  to study multimodal attentional processes in low-and high-risk infants (preterm < 36 weeks gestational age, IUGR etc.,). Overall, these studies offer valuable insights into early neurodevelopmental differences among high-risk infants, providing essential data for identifying potential markers of cognitive and language development.

These findings  on early identification have broader implications for planning timely interventions to support high-risk infant's sensori-motor, cognitive-linguistic and socio-emotional development. Moreover, these insights play a crucial role in shaping policies aimed at achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which pertains to promoting learning opportunities and fostering holistic development of infants and children.