Studies related to childhood

Narrative Engagement in Children

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Children routinely engage in listening activities where they are required to sustain their attention and listen carefully so that they can incorporate things they have heard to understand future events. This includes classroom listening, story time with family members, or social communication with friends. In the current study, we are hoping to study how children maintain their attention in these types of listening scenarios, and how this relates to things like working memory across children.

Sensory processing in development and in autism

Online & Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

How we perceive the world greatly impacts how we interact with it. Sensory perception is known to change throughout development and to be different in children with developmental disorders such as autism. This study will explore the developmental trajectory of how we perceive the world, how the development of sensory processing differs in autism, and what the neural underpinnings of this typical and atypical development are.

Brain Function and Media Use in Adolescence

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

During the pandemic, school closures and high levels of parent distress resulted in children and adolescents reporting high levels of anxiety and depression, which has been associated with increased hours spent watching screens. The current study seeks to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technology to examine whether increased teen media screen time use is associated with social, cognitive, and mental health concerns and whether that is related to neurological functioning.

Typical and Atypical Development of Compensation to Altered Auditory Feedback

Elborn College (EC)

Early detection of speech, language, and hearing disorders is critical for optimizing outcomes. One great challenge is the early detection of developmental language disorder (DLD). Children with DLD struggle to comprehend what is said to them and express themselves verbally. We are interested in studying how the brains of children process what they hear, comparing typically developing children with children with DLD to improve early identification.

Movement, performance, and ADHD

Althouse Faculty of Education Building (FEB)

ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the daily lives of many children. An environment where this disorder displays itself more than others is in the classroom. A perspective that is starting to gain some traction is the use of physical activity to help improve classroom learning. We are conducting a study to identify how movement during learning impacts performance and brain activity in children with and without ADHD.

Online Narrative Engagement

Online

We are increasingly turning to interesting stories for entertainment and education, including podcasts, audiobooks, or online education. In this study, we are interested in how children engage with these stories over their duration.

Narrative Abilities and Working Memory

Western Elborn College (EC) or Online

Narrative skills are the ability to tell a story. Narrative skills require complex language skills including being able to tell a story that makes sense (also known as coherence) and is grammatically correct (also known as cohesion). Importantly, for school-aged children, narrative skills are critical for later literacy and school achievement. The purpose of this study is to understand how we could promote narrative skills, for example, using different kinds of questions to draw attention to different aspects of the story.

Peer Study

Westminster Hall (WH)

The PEAR Lab at Western University is conducting a study to examine associations between peer relationships and eating disorders among female adolescents.

Females

13 to 17 years old

Healthy volunteers and volunteers with eating disorders

Auditory ERPs and early language

Elborn College (EC)

Proper auditory input during childhood is crucial to the development of high functioning language skills later in life. We are interested in how our brains response to simple tones is related to language skills in childhood.

Brain Variability in Children with Previous Infantile Hydrocephalus

Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the differences in brain networks between healthy children and children who have experienced hydrocephalus as infants.