The big picture Thanks to modern neonatal care, more preterm babies are surviving than ever before. Yet more than thirteen million babies worldwide are still born early each year, and many spend their first days or weeks in neonatal intensive-care units (NICUs) ([1];...
Two things happened early in my career that changed everything, personally and professionally: I had a baby and within a few months, he began to laugh. It was the simplest but most astounding developmental observation I had made, effectively turning my research focus...
We have all seen dramatic taglines about the impact of screens on children’s development such as “Too much screen time harms children” or “More screen time linked to delayed development”. These claims rest on research showing that, in general, digital media has been...
In developmental research, we rely heavily on piloting to refine our methods and make our studies more robust. Being more transparent about procedures and observations from pilot studies could help us tackle several field-specific challenges. What emerges during...
As a kid, I was an avid consumer of sci-fi/fantasy books, which I’d get in unremarkable hardcover from the local library. When I would later see the dust jackets or movie versions of these fictional worlds, I’d often have a strong reaction along the lines of “that’s...
On visits to my mother’s house, it is inevitable that we look through baby pictures, a tradition that has grown increasingly common since I began my research into memory development. I know the stories behind many of these pictures, mostly through my mother. This past...
