Susan Rose

Albert Einstein College of Medicine | AECOM · Department of Pediatrics; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Objective: Rett syndrome (RTT), an x-linked neurodevelopmental disorder caused by spontaneous mutations in the MECP2 gene, is characterized by profound impairments in expressive language and purposeful hand use. We have pioneered the use of gaze-based tasks to by-pass these limitations and developed measures suitable for clinical trials with RTT....

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to deepen our understanding of attention (a core cognitive ability) in Rett syndrome (RTT), an x-linked neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. We focused on 2 key aspects of visual orienting-shifting and disengaging attention-both of which are critical for exploring the vi...

Aim: This study aims to investigate selective attention in Rett syndrome, a severely disabling neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the X-linked MECP2 gene. Method: The sample included 28 females with Rett syndrome (RTT) and 32 age-matched typically developing controls. We used a classic search task, in conjunction with eye-trackin...

Objective: The object of the present study is to advance our understanding of the cognitive profile of Rett syndrome (RTT), an X-linked neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. We focus on sustained attention, which plays a critical role in driving cognitive growth, and use an innovative, gaze-based task that minimizes de...

Background: Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurological disease that primarily affects females. The level of brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) expression directly correlates with the severity of RTT related symptoms. Because Glatiramer acetate (GA) stimulates secretion of BDNF in the brain, we conducted the study with the objective to asses...

Background: We sought to examine fundamental aspects of attention in children with Rett syndrome, a severely disabling neurodevelopmental disorder caused by spontaneous mutations in the X-linked MECP2 gene. To gauge their attention, we used eye tracking, which bypasses the profound impairments in expressive language and hand use in Rett syndrome....

This study examined the relation of 3-year core information-processing abilities to lexical growth and development. The core abilities covered four domains-memory, representational competence (cross-modal transfer), processing speed, and attention. Lexical proficiency was assessed at 3 and 13 years with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) an...

Background Glatiramer Acetate (GA) represents a collection of synthetic polypeptides approved for the treatment of relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis, for patients who are 18 years or older. Its high safety profile has been documented in large cohorts of patients 10 or older. Quantitative immunofluorescence assays showed about twofold increase...

This chapter presents an overview of some of the major findings having to do with preterm/full-term differences in memory during the infant and toddler years. It also discusses their implications for later cognition. Visual recognition, one of the most widely studied forms of infant memory, is generally assessed with the visual paired comparison (V...

The aim of this study was to examine attention and recognition memory for faces and patterns in Rett syndrome, a severely disabling neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the X-linked MECP2 gene. Because Rett syndrome impairs speech and hand use, precluding most neuropsychological testing, the visual paired-comparison paradigm (VPC) was...

Recent work suggests that executive functions, the cornerstone of higher-level cognitive operations, are driven by basic information processing abilities. Using structural equation modeling, with latent variables, the present study provides the first evidence that this driving force begins in infancy, such that abilities in infancy predict executiv...

This study identified deficits in executive functioning in pre-adolescent preterms and modeled their role, along with processing speed, in explaining preterm/full-term differences in reading and mathematics. Preterms (< 1750 g) showed deficits at 11 years on a battery of tasks tapping the three basic executive functions identified by Miyake - updat...

Although it is well established that preterms as a group do poorly relative to their full-term peers on tests of global cognitive functioning, the basis for this relative deficiency is less understood. The present paper examines preterm deficits in core cognitive abilities and determines their role in mediating preterm/full-term differences in IQ....

There is considerable dispute about the nature of infant memory. Using SEM models, we examined whether popular characterizations of the structure of adult memory, including the two-process theory of recognition, are applicable in the infant and toddler years. The participants were a cohort of preterms and full-terms assessed longitudinally--at 1, 2...

The present report assesses information processing in the toddler years (24 and 36 months), using a cohort of preterms (<1750 g) and full-terms initially seen in infancy. The children received a battery of tasks tapping 11 specific abilities from four domains - memory, processing speed, attention, and representational competence. The same battery h...

A controversial issue in the field of language development is whether language emergence and growth is dependent solely on processes specifically tied to language or could also depend on basic cognitive processes that affect all aspects of cognitive competence (domain-general processes). The present article examines this issue using a large battery...

3 groups of 12-month-olds were tested for cross-modal and intramodal transfer of information about shape. Infants were given either visual (V) or tactual (T) familiarization and then tested for visual recognition (V-V, T-V) or tactual recognition (T-T, V-T). Transfer was tested after either 15, 30, or 60 sec familiarization. Overall, intramodal tra...

The present work examined the changing role of inner and outer facial features in the recognition of upright and inverted faces in 5-, 7-, and 9-month-olds. Study 1 established that the "inversion effect" (impaired recognition of an inverted face) was present in infants as young as 5 months. In Study 2, internal and external features were inverted...

Using data from a longitudinal study of preterms and full-terms, the present study examined the structure of infant cognition at 12 months, the extent to which five 12-month abilities (attention, speed, recognition, recall, and representational competence) mediated the relation from prematurity to mental development at 2 - 3 years, and how continui...

The study described here is the first to experimentally demonstrate the effects of experience on the development of tactual-visual transfer. Infant pigtailed macaque monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) were reared from birth to 2 months of age in special cages that allowed the separation of tactual and visual experience. When assessed on a battery of measu...

The ability to remember people, objects, and events one encounters is critically important for effective functioning in the world. Remembering your mother's face, where you left your keys, and that it is your daughter's birthday tomorrow allow you to successfully manage your day, as well as your relationships with others. Questions about the proces...

This study examined the relation of information processing in 7-month-old preterms (<1750 g at birth) and full-terms to Bayley Mental Development Indexes (MDIs) at 2 and 3 years. The infant measures were drawn from four cognitive domains: attention, speed, memory, and representational competence. Structural equation modeling showed that these measu...

This report concerns the development and stability of recall memory at 12,24, and 36 months of age in preterm (<1750g birthweight) and term children from a prospective, longitudinal study. There were 56 preterm children (55.4% male; mean birthweight 1119.5g [SD 279.2], range 551 to 1742g; mean gestational age 29.7 weeks [SD 2.9], range 25 to 36wks)...

This report concerns the development and stability of recall memory at 12, 24, and 36 months of age in preterm (<1750 g birthweight) and term children from a prospective, longitudinal study. There were 56 preterm children (55.4% male; mean birthweight 1119.5 g [SD 279.2], range 551 to 1742 g; mean gestational age 29.7 weeks [SD 2.9], range 25 to 36...

The present study explored the dimensionality of cognition at 12 months by factor analyzing data from a large cohort of preterm and full-term infants (N=182). Two analyses were done. In the first, using only measures used earlier, when the infants were 7 months of age, the same three factors emerged at 12 months as at the earlier age—namely, Attent...

The present study explored the dimensionality of infant cognition by factor analyzing measures from a battery of tasks administered to a large cohort of 7-month-old preterm and full-term infants (N=203). A principal axis factor analysis yielded three factors accounting for 37% of the variance. There was one attention factor (look duration and shift...

Visual recognition memory is a robust form of memory that is evident from early infancy, shows pronounced developmental change, and is influenced by many of the same factors that affect adult memory; it is surprisingly resistant to decay and interference. Infant visual recognition memory shows (a) modest reliability, (b) good discriminant validity,...

This article provides an overview of some innovative ways of examining infant cognition, highlighting several procedures that are likely to prove useful for assessing the effects of interventions in the first year of life. The procedures singled out assess three aspects of cognition in infancy: visual recognition memory, attention, and speed of pro...

Relations between infant visual recognition memory and later cognition have fueled interest in identifying the underlying cognitive components of this important infant ability. The present large-scale study examined three promising factors in this regard--processing speed, short-term memory capacity, and attention. Two of these factors, attention a...

Processing speed was assessed at 5, 7, and 12 months in full-term and preterm infants (birth-weight < 1,750 g). Speed was gauged directly in a new task by presenting infants with a series of paired faces, one that remained the same across trials and one that changed; trials continued until infants showed a consistent novelty preference. At all ages...

Processing speed was assessed at 5, 7, and 12 months in full-term and preterm infants (birthweight <1,750 g). Speed was gauged directly in a new task by presenting infants with a series of paired faces, one that remained the same across trials and one that changed; trials continued until infants showed a consistent novelty preference. At all ages,...

This research examined developmental and individual differences in infants' speed of processing faces and the relation of processing speed to the type of information encoded. To gauge processing speed, 7- and 12-month-olds were repeatedly presented with the same face (frontal view), each time paired with a new one, until they showed a consistent pr...

Developmental change and stability of visual expectation and reaction times (RT) were examined at 5, 7, and 12 months in a longitudinal sample of term and preterm infants (birthweight <1,750 g). Using the traditional 200-ms cut-point to separate anticipatory from reactive saccades, RTs (and their standard deviations) declined markedly over age, whe...

A span task was developed to assess the amount of information infants could hold in short-term memory. In this task, infants were presented with up to 4 items in succession and then tested for recognition by successively pairing each item with a novel one. A large sample of full-terms and low-birth-weight preterms (< 1,750 g) was tested longitudina...

In three experiments, the distribution and malleability of infant visual attention were studied in 5-month-olds (N = 72) while they inspected large geometric designs. In Experiment 1, we established that infants maintained their distribution of attention from a pretest to a familiarization phase. We also replicated and extended our previous finding...

Several aspects of visual attention and their implications for recognition memory were examined in a longitudinal sample of full-term and preterm (birth weight < 1,750 g) infants seen at 5, 7, and 12 months of age. At all 3 ages, full-terms had shorter look durations, faster shift rates, less off-task behavior, and higher novelty scores than preter...

Newborns (N = 83) were presented with 3 conditions, each for 160 sec: tongue protrusion (TP), mouth opening (MO), and control (CO). In TP and MO, a female model alternated between demonstrating the gesture for 20 sec and presenting a passive, motionless face for 20 sec. In CO, she presented a passive face in both the “demonstration” and “passive” i...

Several aspects of visual attention and their implications for recognition memory were examined in a longitudinal sample of full-term and preterm (birth weight < 1,750 g) infants seen at 5, 7, and 12 months of age. At all 3 ages, full-terms had shorter look durations, faster shift rates, less off-task behavior, and higher novelty scores than preter...

The relation of positive affect to attention and learning was examined in 5-, 7-, and 9-month-olds (N = 84). Affect and attention were assessed while the infants inspected a photograph. Affect was rated globally, for overall mood, and specifically, for amount of time smiling. Attention was indexed by the duration of the infant's longest (or peak) l...

The present study reexamined the relevance of auditory and visual cross-modal matching to reading ability, an issue first addressed in a seminal study by Birch and Belmont (1964). By presenting all patterns to be matched as temporal sequences of tones and lights, including intramodal as well as cross-modal conditions, and covarying memory, three pr...

The present study demonstrated that individual differences in cross-modal transfer showed continuity over a 10-year span. Tactual-visual tasks, requiring visual recognition of shapes that had previously been felt but not seen, were given to full-term and preterm children at 2 ages, 1 and 11 years. Cross-modal performance showed a left-hand advantag...

The present study demonstrated that individual differences in cross-modal transfer showed continuity over a 10-year span. Tactual–visual tasks, requiring visual recognition of shapes that had previously been felt but not seen, were given to full-term and preterm children at 2 ages, 1 and 11 years. Cross-modal performance showed a left-hand advantag...

This study examined the extent to which memory and processing speed accounted for relations we had found earlier between infant information processing and childhood IQ. The measures of speed and memory were obtained when the children were 11 years of age using paper-and-pencil tasks and an extensive battery of computer-administered tasks. The relat...

Infants' recognition of contour-deleted figures was investigated in four experiments using a habituation procedure. The results indicate that 12-month-old infants could recognize line drawings of figures that were missing 33%, 50%, or even as much as 66% of their contour. This was so whether the contour-deleted versions were used on habituation or...

Infants' recognition of contour-deleted figures was investigated in four experiments using a habituation procedure. The results indicate that 12-month-old infants could recognize line drawings of figures that were missing 33%, 50%, or even as much as 66% of their contour. This was so whether the contour-deleted versions were used on habituation or...

The relation between speed and cognition is assuming an increasingly prominent position in infant research. The current study examined the potential trade-off between speed of processing, as measured by learning rate and the duration of individual looks, and thoroughness of processing, as measured by the extraction of stimulus detail. Six and one-h...

In this study, the relationships between the length, number, and distribution of looks were investigated. To this end, 5-, 7-, and 9-month-old infants were familiarized for 24 or 36 s with two identical geometric forms and tested with a novel form paired with the familiar one. The distribution of individual looks to different portions of the displa...

Cognitive development in very low birth weight (VLBW, < or = 1500 g) infants typically has been reported based on mean endpoints in cross-sectional studies. These overall group means mask individual patterns of cognitive development. Given the heterogeneity of VLBW infants, it is important to identify individual patterns of development and the fact...

This study demonstrates continuity in visual recognition memory from early infancy to later childhood. Visual recognition memory, assessed with a paired-comparison task at 7 months, correlated significantly with visual recognition memory from a span task at 11 years, r = .35. This relation remained significant even when other measures of memory at...

This study examined the effects of prematurity on 11-year-olds' performance on 2 specific aspects of cognition--memory and processing speed, using a new computer-administered battery, the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT: Detterman). Preterms performed more poorly than their full-term controls on all memory tasks; this relative deficit was associated...

The predictive utility of three aspects of neonatal neurobehavioral performance was examined in 144 very low birth weight (< 1500 g) preterms who were followed until 6 years of age. Visual-following and auditory-orienting composites derived from the Einstein Neonatal Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale were modestly related to the Mental Developmental...

Relations between infant information processing and specific cognitive outcomes at 11 years were examined in a sample of preterms and full-terms followed longitudinally (N = 90). Infancy measures, obtained at 7-months and 1-year, included visual and tactual recognition memory, crossmodal transfer, object permanence, and visual attention; eleven-yea...

Relations between infant information processing and specific cognitive outcomes at 11 years were examined in a sample of preterms and full-terms followed longitudinally (N = 90). Infancy measures, obtained at 7-months and 1-year, included visual and tactual recognition memory, cross-modal transfer, object permanence, and visual attention; eleven-ye...

The relation between physical growth and cognitive development in infants growing up in India was examined in this study. Subjects were 183 5-12-month-olds. Weight and length, two anthropometric measures commonly used to index nutritional status in developing countries, related to infant measures of visual recognition memory and tactual-visual cros...

As part of a longitudinal follow-up of full-terms and preterms, infant measures of information processing obtained at 7 months and 1 year were related to various 6-year outcomes: general intelligence, language proficiency, early reading and quantitative skills, and several facets of perceptual organization (N = 91). 7-month Visual recognition memor...

As part of a longitudinal follow-up of full-terms and preterms, infant measures of information processing obtained at 7 months and 1 year were related to various 6-year outcomes: general intelligence, language proficiency, early reading and quantitative skills, and several facets of perceptual organization (N= 91). 7-month Visual recognition memory...

Results are reported for a 3-year prospective longitudinal study of behavior problems in a group of children born at very low birthweight (<1,500 g) and a full-term control. Behavior problems were assessed with the Behavior Screening Questionnaire (BSQ) at 3 years and with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the hyperactivity index from the Con...

3 groups of 12-month-olds were tested for cross-modal and intramodal transfer of information about shape. Infants were given either visual (V) or tactual (T) familiarization and then tested for visual recognition (V-V, T-V) or tactual recognition (T-T, V-T). Transfer was tested after either 15, 30, or 60 sec familiarization. Overall, intramodal tra...

Examined the extent to which the relation between infant visual recognition memory (indexed by novelty scores) and later IQ was accounted for by a common association with language. In a longitudinal study, problems of visual recognition memory were administered at 7 mo, scales of language development at 2.5, 3, and 4 yrs, and intelligence tests at...

As part of a longitudinal study of high-risk preterm infants (birthweight > 1,500 g) and a low socioeconomic status (SES) comparison group of full-term infants, measures of information processing were obtained at 1 yr: visual and tactual recognition memory, cross-modal transfer, and object permanence. Of these, cross-modal transfer was the most str...

Cross modal transfer abilities were examined in 27 infant pigtailed macaque monkeys ( Macaca nemestrina) classified as either high risk or low risk for future cognitive deficits. The animals were given an object to explore tactually in a darkened room for a familiarization period. They then were visually presented with the tactually familiar object...

Cross modal transfer abilities were examined in 27 infant pigtailed macaque monkeys ( Macaca nemestrina ) classified as either high risk or low risk for future cognitive deficits. The animals were given an object to explore tactually in a darkened room for a familiarization period. They then were visually presented with the tactually familiar objec...

This study examined the relation of infant attention and memory to later cognition in two groups of low SES subjects: 45 full-terms and 46 high-risk preterms (<1500 g). Novelty scores averaged over 9 problems of visual recognition memory given at 7 months significantly predicted MDI/IQ at 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years in preterms and from 2 to 5 yea...

This study examined the stability of behavior problems in 44 low SES children ages 2–5 years using the preschool and standard versions of Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist. While scores for the present sample did not differ significantly from Achenbach's standardization sample at age 2, scores at ages 4 and 5 were somewhat elevated; this was tru...

early competencies are proving to have a measurable relation to later intelligence / studies linking early competencies to later intelligence have, for the most part, used measures of habituation or recognition memory—generally visual habituation or visual recognition memory if individual differences in habituation and visual recognition are to b...

To investigate the integration of visual information across space and time, infants watched the contour of a shape being traced out by a moving point source of light and then viewed 2 objects: 1 with the shape they had just seen traced and 1 with a novel shape. In the first study, which varied the number of tracings (velocity about 16.7 cm/sec), 12...

A group of 46 full-term and 54 high-risk preterm (less than 1,500 grams birthweight) infants were tested at 6, 7, and/or 8 months of age (corrected age for preterms) on a battery of problems assessing visual recognition memory and tactual-visual cross-modal transfer. At all 3 ages, scores obtained on aggregates of 6-11 problems in the battery signi...

Comments on the paper on infant habituation by G. Malcuit et al (see record 1989-32414-001) and suggests that (1) evidence linking habituation to information processing was overlooked, (2) the relation of fixation times to other measures of infant cognition might be sought in different directions, and (3) evidence for the reliability of visual mea...

7-month-old full-terms and high-risk preterms (less than 1,500 grams at birth) were compared on problems of visual recognition memory and tactual-to-visual cross-modal transfer. On the visual problems, preterm infants showed significantly less differential attentiveness to novelty than full-terms. They also required longer exposure times during vis...

This study examined the stability of two aspects of infant visual attention derived from the paired-comparison procedure in infants tested at 6, 7, and 8 months: novelty preference and exposure time. Novelty preference, which reflects the relative amount of time the infants look at a new stimulus compared with a familiar stimulus, was found to be m...

A group of preschool children with anxiety disorders was compared with a matched group of children from normal preschool settings on Q-sort descriptions of ego-resiliency and ego-control as well as on measures of temperament and psychopathology. In addition to manifesting a greater number of behavior problems, clinic children were less resilient, e...

humans . . . can identify objects by one perceptual system even though their previous experience of those objects has been limited to one of the others / cross-modal transfer recent studies of cross-modal transfer in infants / focus first on how the studies illuminate the different points of view on the relationship between perceptual systems and...

The effects of prior exposure to slow or fast temporal frequencies of visual or auditory stimuli on subsequent preferences for visual temporal frequencies were examined in three groups of neonates (N =12 in each group). The 2 Hz group was exposed to lights flashing at 2 Hz prior to half the preference trials and sounds pulsing at 2 Hz prior to the...

Recently, a number of studies have suggested that the infant is capable of abstraction. The author describes studies that have contributed to the understanding of interpretative mechanisms available to infants. It has been shown that discrete entities are recognized as different from one another, yet are also recognized as bearing some similarity o...

25 full-term (FT) and 33 preterm (PT) infants who had participated in studies of cross-modal (CM) and intramodal (IM) transfer at 12 mo of age were seen at older ages to assess the predictive validity of these early measures for later cognition. FT Ss were administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 24 mo of age; PT Ss were administered...

A number of preterms who had participated in a study of visual recognition memory when they were 6 months of age were seen at older ages to assess the predictive validity of the early visual measures for cognitive outcome. The Bayley scales were administered at 6, 12, and 24 months, the Stanford-Binet at 34 and 40 months, and the WISC-R at 6 years....

Investigated right-hemispheric specialization for tactual processing in 96 2–5 yr old right-handed children. Cross-modal transfer from touch to vision was assessed under conditions where Ss palpated shapes with either their left or right hand while music was simultaneously played to the left ear, right ear, or neither ear. This task pitted music ag...

Investigated right-hemispheric specialization for tactual processing in 96 2–5 yr old right-handed children. Cross-modal transfer from touch to vision was assessed under conditions where Ss palpated shapes with either their left or right hand while music was simultaneously played to the left ear, right ear, or neither ear. This task pitted music ag...

Examined whether young children show any evidence of right hemispheric specialization for tactual processing. 72 1-, 2-, and 3-yr-old right-handed children were each administered 6 cross-modal tasks in which they palpated a shape with either their left or right hand for 25 sec and then viewed the familiar and a novel shape in a 10-sec test of visua...

This study investigated the effect of increasing familiarization time on the visual recognition memory of 6- and 12-month-old full-term and preterm infants. Infants were given trials in which they viewed a shape for either 10-, 15-, 20-, or 30-sec familiarization and were then tested for visual recognition memory using the paired comparison techniq...

12-month-old infants were familiarized either tactually or visually with objects and then tested for visual recognition memory using either (1) the familiar and a novel object, (2) colored pictures of the objects, or (3) outline drawings of them. In Study 1, infants showed recognition memory on all 3 visual intramodal problems but showed cross-moda...

Investigated the suggestion that young infants show a preference for familiar stimuli that is supplanted by a preference for novel stimuli as they get older and the act of recognition becomes commonplace. In Study 1, 84 Ss (3.5, 4.5, and 6.5 mo old) were tested for visual recognition memory of shapes, using the paired comparison procedure. The 3.5-...

Investigated in 4 studies with 101 infants 25.5–32 wks of age the ability of Ss to transfer information about shape across modalities. Ss were familiarized either orally or tactually and then tested for visual recognition memory. In Exp I, Ss failed to show evidence of cross-modal transfer on any of the tasks (1 oral–visual, 2 tactual–visual). When...

In the first of 2 studies of visual recognition memory, 6- and 9-month-old infants were tested for their ability to differentiate novel from familiar test stimuli immediately following brief amounts of familiarization. After all problems were given, the paired test stimuli were re-presented for a test of delayed recognition memory. The delay test t...

136 1-yr-old infants were tested on tasks of visual–tactual cross-modal transfer and tactual intramodal processing. In Exp I, Ss successfully differentiated novel from familiar objects by tactual exploration after 60 sec of either visual familiarization (V–T) or 60 sec of tactual familiarization (T–T); all testing that involved tactual exploration...

The reasoning skills of preschool children were examined through three types of problems: Prediction, Explanations, and Explanations of Predictions. The 3-year-olds successfully answered half of the Prediction problems; the 4-year-olds two-thirds of the Prediction problems and better than a third of the other two groups; the 5-year-olds showed high...

Cardiac and behavioral responses to a tactual stimulus were evaluated during the first sleep cycle for 3 groups of infants: 30 full terms, 30 nonintervened preterms, and 30 intervened preterms. Prior to testing, the latter group had received a regimen of multimodal sensory stimulation, which emphasized the tactual and vestibular modalities. The res...