Eugene C. Goldfield, PhD
Instructor in Psychology
Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital
Department of Psychiatry

MRRC Project(s)

R01 DC04404-01 (Pending)
Gesture and Apraxia Following Infant Cardiac Surgery

Oral-motor behaviors, such as sucking and vocalization, are among the earliest developing motor capabilities of infants. The oral-motor system is unique as a window for multiple motor functions of the brain in the earliest period of life, and includes respiratory control, airway protection, sucking and swallowing, cry vocalization, and non-cry vocalization. For infants at high risk of brain injury due to prematurity, or following surgery to correct a congenital heart defect, analysis of the temporal organization of oral-motor behaviors and their coordination with each other provides an excellent parameter of current neurological status as well as recovery of brain function. We are addressing the hypothesis that oral-motor and respiratory behaviors organized into simpler patterns, with component rhythms that have weaker influences on each other and that change more slowly from one organizational state to another, are indicative of greater likelihood of brain injury and of adverse neurological sequelae. Our specific goals are to assess early oral-motor and respiratory function, to use these measures to examine neurological recovery from prematurity and from the effects of early cardiac surgery, and to examine the relation between the earliest oral-motor behaviors and the emergence of speech.