We hosted three WSU School of Medicine students — Jae C, Nick C, and Adam K, as part of the Summer Research Opportunity program. It was a perfect fit for the pandemic summer and a fantastic experience for both the interns and the Early Markers team. We adapted our ongoing infant studies (EMMA and MIMM) to go fully virtual and also conducted all our summer internship activities via Zoom and Slack.
The interns got an immersive education in infant development, clinical administration and assessment of infant motor development using standardized tools, and video coding of motor movements. During the internship, they also got valuable exposure to evaluation of motor skills in the typically developing infant as well as identification of atypical behaviors.
In their final week, they got to observe a ‘live’ motor assessment session (socially distanced), conducted safely outdoors by a pediatric occupational therapist. Their assessments, needless to say, were in excellent agreement with the pediatric OT.
Jae C and Adam K have decided to pursue research questions raised by their involvement with EMMA as part of their longitudinal scholarly project requirements. We are excited to help them explore additional points of scientific validity of EMMA solutions for early developmental screening and home-based, parent-led interventions.