Current Research

 

Social Play in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

This project investigates differences in social interaction in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Given that social and emotional processing is difficult to test in developing children, particularly in those who are non-verbal or who have language impairments, we developed a unique behavioral paradigm to determine what drives different social behaviors in young children. Children visit our SEND Lab and play in a custom-built, child-friendly castle, while social and emotional behaviors are observed and quantified. We are then able to discriminate whether different responses to social stimuli are driven by reward, aversion, or simply a lack of motivation. After playing in the castle, the children also watch a short video while we track their eye movements. With this information, we can look to see if their eye movements relate to the behaviors we observed in the castle. We hope this research will lead to better diagnostic and treatment options for children in the future, such as individualized intervention strategies that seek to improve social interactions in children. Participate now!

October 23, 2021: Alexandra Carbayo presented her poster on the Devlopmental Trajectory of Dyadic Interactions at the 2021 CHM Scholarly Symposium.

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February 25, 2020: Our first year medical student, Alexandra Carbayo, presented her Early Clinical Experience Scholarly Project, "Utilization of Social Stories to Alleviate Anxiety for Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder," to the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine community. Nice work Alex!


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July 17, 2019: Drs. Sarah Hulbert and Kaitlin Carlson at the 4th Annual MSU Autism Family-Professional Conference at the Henry Center for Executive Development in East Lansing.


                                             kaitlin-sarah_pediatricresearchday

March 27, 2019: Drs. Sarah Hulbert and Kaitlin Carlson presented the poster, "Probing Social Motivation in Young Children with and without Autism," at the 18th Annual Pediatric Research Day, hosted at the MSU Breslin Center in East Lansing.

Trainees, staff, and faculty from MSU, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Sparrow Hospital, Spectrum Health, the University of Michigan, the Van Andel Research Institute, Wayne State University/Children's Hospital of Michigan, and Western University came together for a Genomic Engineering-themed research day full of keynote speakers, oral presentations, and posters.


Healthy Development

The goal of this research is to reduce the prevalence of lifelong health impairments that are caused by early life stress exposure. By examining social interactions between infants and their mothers, inquiring about current life events, and collecting such biobehavioral measures as attention with remote eye-tracking, we aim to learn more about healthy baby development and to identify biomarkers for resilience to early life adversity. Participate now!


Carbayo poster

October 21, 2020: Our second-year medical student, Alexandra Carbayo, participated in the 2020 CHM Fall Virtual Scholarly Activity Symposium where she presented, "Probing the impact of maternal stress on mother-baby interactions" to the CHM community.

Medical students and residents from around the state of Michigan came together to present research, quality improvement, and case reports.

Abbi Bailey Research Day 2022

March 18, 2022: Two of our second-year medical students, Bailey Braum and Abbigail Behmlander, participated in the 2022 Great Lakes Pediatric Research Day held at Children's Hospital of Michgan in Detroit. They presented their poster, "Neurodevelopmental Outcomes of Infants 0-2 years of Age Exposed to Methadone or Buprenorphine to Treat Opioid Use DIsorder, A Review" to the attendees. Second year student Eneka Lamb, and collaborator Dr. Cara Poland were also contributing authors.

Trainees, staff, and faculty from MSU, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Sparrow Hospital, Spectrum Health, the University of Michigan, Children's Hospital of Michigan, and Western University joined together, in-person!, for a research day full of keynote speakers, oral and poster presentations.