Jana Iverson | |
---|---|
Occupation | Professor of Psychology |
Awards | Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award from the University of Pittsburgh (2007) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Bryn Mawr College, University of Chicago |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Pittsburgh,Boston University |
Jana Marie Iverson is a developmental psychologist known for her research on the development of gestures and motor skills in relation to communicative development. She has worked with various populations including children at high risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD),blind individuals,and preterm infants. [1] She is currently a professor of psychology at Boston University.
Iverson received the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award from the University of Pittsburgh in 2007 for her work on autism. [2]
Iverson co-edited with Susan Goldin-Meadow the book The nature and functions of gesture in children’s communication. [3] The book discusses how gesture and speech become intertwined over the course of development,and gesture development in clinical populations,such as individuals diagnosed with ASD. [4]
Iverson attended Bryn Mawr College,where she received an A.B. in Psychology in 1991. [1] Subsequently,Iverson attended the University of Chicago,where she earned an M.A. in psychology in 1994,and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1996,under the supervision of Susan Goldin-Meadow. Iverson's dissertation examined the spontaneous gestures of congenitally blind youth (9 to 18 year-olds) and compared them with the gestures of individuals with sight (half of whom were blindfolded during tasks). [5] Iverson completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University (1997-1999),where she worked with Esther Thelen. She worked at University of Missouri from 1999 to 2003 before joining the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 2003. She then joined the faculty at Boston University in 2022. [6]
Iverson participates in the Baby Siblings Research Consortium,a multinational project involving research teams in the United States,Canada,Israel,and the United Kingdom that aims to identify behavioral and biological markers associated with ASD risk by studying infant siblings of children previously diagnosed with ASD. Research to date found that siblings with high genetic risk for ASD exhibited lower developmental functioning (i.e.,higher rates of developmental delay) at 3 years of age than children at low risk,even when dataset excluded children who met ASD diagnostic criteria. [7] [8]
Iverson's current research,funded by the National Institutes of Health,studies the development of walking and locomotor exploration in infants at high risk of being diagnosed with ASD,due to the presence of an older sibling with ASD. The study aims relate motor development to growth in infants' social communicative skills with caregivers from 6 to 36 months of age,and infants known to be at heightened risk for motor and communicative delays to infants at low risk. [9]
Iverson's early research explored the role of gesturing in communicative development in individuals who were blind from birth and aimed to answer the question of why people gesture. [10] Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow tested two possibilities that were not mutually exclusive. First,speakers may gesture simply because they see others gesture,and learn from this model to move their hands as they talk. To test this,they studied spontaneous gestures in congenitally blind children and adolescents and a control group of sighted children and adolescents. Second,speakers may gesture because they understand that gestures can convey useful information to the listener. To test this,they examined whether speakers gestured even when talking to a listener known to be blind,and thus obviously unable to profit from information conveyed by gesture. The researchers found that gesturing did not depend on either a model or an observer and appeared to be essential to the speaking process itself. Their findings suggest that the gestures that accompany speech may reflect or even facilitate the thinking that underlies speaking. [11]
In a longitudinal study of children at ages 10 to 24 months old,Iverson and Goldin-Meadow examined how children's early gestures support their acquisition of first words and the transition to two-word speech. [12] Using video-recordings of naturalistic observation of caregiver-child interaction,the researchers coded instances of speech or gesture,or a combination of the two. They found that children often referred to objects using gestures prior to acquiring the corresponding words. The child's identification of a referent through gesture both preceded and predicted their learning of its name. Iverson and Goldin-Meadow also found that children's use of a gesture in combination with a word (e.g.,pointing at bird while saying "nap") predicted their subsequent production of two-word combinations,such as "bird nap",when the gesture provided information that supplemented the meaning of the word. These findings suggested that gestures and words are tightly linked in early communicative development.
With Esther Thelen,Iverson explored how gestures and other body movements may serve as a foundation for language development. [13] They found that hand and mouth are mutually activated by spontaneous hand/mouth reflexes in newborn infants. Further,by the time they are 16 to 18 months old,infants produce meaningful words and gesture combinations in synchrony. Building on work by David McNeill that views gesture and speech as generated by a unified system for communicating, [14] Iverson traced the developmental origins of the gesture–speech system through studies of vocal–motor coordination. She and a colleague focused on 6- to 9-months infants and how certain gestures of the upper extremities might underlie the coordination of speech and gesture apparent in adults. [15] They found associations between rhythmic movements of the arms (especially the right arm) and increased rates of babbling. The authors suggested that "When an infant is engaged in an intense bout of rhythmic limb activity,for example,the level of activation in the motor system may spill over into the vocal system and entrain its activity." [15] Thus,on account of manual control developing more rapidly than vocal articulation,voluntary limb movements may serve to help infants gain voluntary control over their vocalizations. [16]
Baby sign language is the use of manual signing allowing infants and toddlers to communicate emotions,desires,and objects prior to spoken language development. With guidance and encouragement signing develops from a natural stage in infant development known as gesture. These gestures are taught in conjunction with speech to hearing children,and are not the same as a sign language. Some common benefits that have been found through the use of baby sign programs include an increased parent-child bond and communication,decreased frustration,and improved self-esteem for both the parent and child. Researchers have found that baby sign neither benefits nor harms the language development of infants. Promotional products and ease of information access have increased the attention that baby sign receives,making it pertinent that caregivers become educated before making the decision to use baby sign.
Developmental disorders comprise a group of psychiatric conditions originating in childhood that involve serious impairment in different areas. There are several ways of using this term. The most narrow concept is used in the category "Specific Disorders of Psychological Development" in the ICD-10. These disorders comprise developmental language disorder,learning disorders,motor disorders,and autism spectrum disorders. In broader definitions ADHD is included,and the term used is neurodevelopmental disorders. Yet others include antisocial behavior and schizophrenia that begins in childhood and continues through life. However,these two latter conditions are not as stable as the other developmental disorders,and there is not the same evidence of a shared genetic liability.
A language delay is a language disorder in which a child fails to develop language abilities at the usual age-appropriate period in their developmental timetable. It is most commonly seen in children ages two to seven years-old and can continue into adulthood. The reported prevalence of language delay ranges from 2.3 to 19 percent.
The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is a standardized diagnostic test for diagnosing and assessing autism,now in its second edition as of 2012. It is considered to be a "gold standard" in diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Many causes of autism have been proposed,but understanding of the theory of causation of autism,or otherwise known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is incomplete. Attempts have been made to incorporate the known genetic and environmental causes into a comprehensive causative framework. ASD is a complex developmental condition marked by persistent challenges to social interaction,speech and nonverbal communication,and restricted/repetitive behaviors and its phenotypes vary significantly.
The floortime or Developmental,Individual-differences,Relationship-based (DIR) model is a developmental model for assessing and understanding any child's strengths and weaknesses. It has become particularly effective at identifying the unique developmental profiles and developing programs for children experiencing developmental delays due to autism,autism spectrum disorders,or other developmental disorders. This Model was developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan and first outlined in 1979 in his book Intelligence and Adaptation. Evidence for the efficacy of DIR/Floortime includes results from randomized controlled trials of DIR/Floortime and the DIR/Floortime-based P.L.A.Y. Project;because of various limitations in these studies,the existing evidence is deemed to "weakly support" the efficacy of Floortime.
Gestures in language acquisition are a form of non-verbal communication involving movements of the hands,arms,and/or other parts of the body. Children can use gesture to communicate before they have the ability to use spoken words and phrases. In this way gestures can prepare children to learn a spoken language,creating a bridge from pre-verbal communication to speech. The onset of gesture has also been shown to predict and facilitate children's spoken language acquisition. Once children begin to use spoken words their gestures can be used in conjunction with these words to form phrases and eventually to express thoughts and complement vocalized ideas.
Joint attention or shared attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing,pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indications. An individual gazes at another individual,points to an object and then returns their gaze to the individual. Scaife and Bruner were the first researchers to present a cross-sectional description of children's ability to follow eye gaze in 1975. They found that most eight- to ten-month-old children followed a line of regard,and that all 11- to 14-month-old children did so. This early research showed it was possible for an adult to bring certain objects in the environment to an infant's attention using eye gaze.
Susan Goldin-Meadow is the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Psychology,Comparative Human Development,the college,and the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago. She is the principal investigator of a 10-year program project grant,funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,designed to explore the impact of environmental and biological variation on language growth. She is also a co-PI of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC),one of six Science of Learning Centers funded by the National Science Foundation to explore learning in an interdisciplinary framework with an eye toward theory and application. She is the founding editor of Language Learning and Development,the official journal of the Society for Language Development. She was President of the International Society for Gesture Studies from 2007–2012.
John D. Bonvillian (1948-2018) was a psychologist and associate professor - emeritus in the Department of Psychology and the Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville,Virginia. He is the principal developer of Simplified Signs,a manual sign communication system designed to be easy to form,easy to understand and easy to remember. He is also known for his research contributions to the study of sign language,child development,psycholinguistics,and language acquisition.
The autism spectrum,often referred to as just autism,autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or sometimes autism spectrum condition (ASC),identifies a loosely defined cluster of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by challenges in social interaction,verbal and nonverbal communication,and often repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Other common features include unusual responses to sensory stimuli and a preference for sameness or unusual adherence to routines.
The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is an augmentative and alternative communication system developed and produced by Pyramid Educational Consultants,Inc. PECS was developed in 1985 at the Delaware Autism Program by Andy Bondy,PhD,and Lori Frost,MS,CCC-SLP. The developers of PECS noticed that traditional communication techniques,including speech imitation,sign language,and picture point systems,relied on the teacher to initiate social interactions and none focused on teaching students to initiate interactions. Based on these observations,Bondy and Frost created a functional means of communication for individuals with a variety of communication challenges. Although PECS was originally developed for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD),its use has become much more widespread. Through the years,PECS has been successfully implemented with individuals with varying diagnoses across the aged span. PECS is an evidence-based practice that has been highly successful with regard to the development of functional communication skills.
Nonverbal autism is a subset of autism where the person does not learn how to speak. It is estimated that 25% to 50% of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) never develop spoken language beyond a few words or utterances.
Connie Kasari is an expert on autism spectrum disorder and a founding member of the Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART) at the University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA). Kasari is Professor of Psychological Studies in Education at UCLA and Professor of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is the leader of the Autism Intervention Research Network for Behavioral Health,a nine-institution research consortium.
Susan Ellis Weismer is a language and communication scientist known for her work on language development in children with specific language impairment and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). She is the Oros Family Chair and Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,where she is a Principal Investigator and Director of the Language Processes Lab. She has also served as the Associate Dean for Research,College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
John N. Constantino is a child psychiatrist and expert on neurodevelopmental disorders,especially autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Constantino is the Blanche F. Ittleson Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine.
Lauren Bernstein Adamson was a developmental psychologist known for her research on communicative development,parent-child interaction,and joint attention in infants with typical and atypical developmental trajectories. She was a Regents' Professor Emerita of Psychology at Georgia State University.
Marian Diamond Sigman (1941–2012) was a developmental and child clinical psychologist known for her research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). At the time of her death,she was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology at the University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA).
Social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD) - previously called semantic-pragmatic disorder (SPD) or pragmatic language impairment (PLI) - is a disorder in understanding pragmatic aspects of language. People with SPCD have special challenges with the semantic aspect of language and the pragmatics of language. Individuals have difficulties with verbal and nonverbal social communication.
Daniel Messinger is an American interdisciplinary developmental psychologist,and academic. His research works span the field of developmental psychology with a focus on emotional and social development of children and infants,and the interactive behavior of children in preschool inclusive classroom.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)