Welcome to the Infant Communication Lab

The Infant Communication Lab studies the nature and development of the relationship between motor activity, postural control, locomotion, communication, and language in infants with an older sibling with autism and infants with a neurotypical older sibling.

Current projects focus on five major topics:

  • How learning to walk relates to changes in infants' exploration and communication and to their caregivers' communication
  • How changes in object exploration and the development of sitting relate to advances in other developmental domains
  • How motor planning develops over time
  • How communication, gesture, and language develop over time in infants
  • How caregivers’ communication with infants changes over time

What makes our lab unique:

Our use of technology to gather fine-grained information about infants' movement at home. We have used wrist sensors and a pressure sensitive mat to track infants' arm movements and how they control their posture as they sit and reach for objects. We are currently using a pressure sensitive gait carpet to track changes in infant walking skill over time.