Todays Friday Feature is Kaitlyn Vitucci!

Kaitlyn is starting her first semester working as a research assistant here at Uconn KIDS! She is a psychology major and plans on adding a Neuroscience double major. She is excited to learn more about the field of psychology and be involved with research. 

She has been interested in psychology for most of her life and this helped her to realize her interest in neuroscience and the brain itself. She wants to go to medical school to become a psychiatrist with a focus on children. She has worked at an after school program for children on the autism spectrum, and this helped to solidify her interest in working with children. 

Kaitlyn likes to spend most of her time with her friends and enjoys painting and drawing. When at home she likes to drive around with her friends and listen to music together. She enjoys spending time with her family and going to new places and restaurants. 

Schools today are constantly busy; students are constantly learning whether it is through play in preschool or cracking open a textbook in high school. All of this can be tiring on students, leading us to ask the question on what can be done to help students?

Studies have shown that taking breaks throughout the day helps students stay engaged throughout the day while also reducing daily stressors, working on social skills, and even increasing brain functioning. Through incorporating simple strategies in the classroom, teachers can witness the positive impacts breaks bring to their environment. Using these strategies at home may even benefit your learners when they are outside of class completing assignments. It is important to think about what a short break can do for your child’s overall functioning; something so little can do wonders for your child’s mental health!

To read more, click here!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday!

This weeks question is… true or false: when infants are developing motor skills, they emerge in a sequence of head to their feet and inside-to-outside 

A. True
B. False

The last weeks question was “newborns have a limited range of vision, how far ahead can they see?” The answer was 10-12 inches, which happens to be the distance between a mother’s face to their nursing infant!

Tune in next week to find out the answer to this weeks question!

Understanding children, especially your own, can be quite challenging. It’s difficult to figure out what is going on in their minds, and especially the reason for their behavior. Children might not communicate any of these things easily, if at all. 

However there are helpful ways to observe their behavior and get to the root of it. The key is to find patterns in their behavior; more specifically the circumstances leading up to the behavior, the behavior itself, and what happened after. The most important part is to write all of this down when it happens, and over time you’ll be able to find a pattern within their behavior that can prove to be helpful in figuring out why this behavior occurred.

For a more detailed explanation, read the full article Here!

Kaitlyn Vitucci

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday!

This weeks question is… Newborns have a limited range of vision, how far ahead can they see?

A. 4 inches
B. 6-8 inches
C. 8-12 inches
D. 12-16 inches

Tune in next week to find out the answer!

Think about yourself… are you more of a visual or audio learner? Now throw that all away because there is no such thing as a visual learner or an audio learner!

There are many myths when it comes to learning that have been involved in education. Learning styles, ages 0 to 3 is the fundamental time where brain development is fixed, and the Multiple Intelligences theory are all neuromyths. The article, Neuroscience and education: myths and messages defines neuromyths as “misconceptions about the brain that flourish when cultural conditions protect them from scrutiny.” It mentions the importance of creating a stronger connection between the fields of neuroscience and education and how it can squash these myths and provide each field with a greater understanding of each other.

Click here to read more!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Torri Ann is a research scientist in the HELLO (Hearing Experience Language Learning Outcomes) Lab. The biggest project in the lab is our Parent Infant Eye-tracking (PIE; Protocol #H23-0448). In this study, they have parents of children who are D/deaf or hard of hearing complete a videotaped 10-minute play session. The parents wear eye-tracking units (like glasses), and the lab assesses how the eye gaze of parents and children relates to spoken word learning! Torri Ann also has other studies that are a continuation of her dissertation looking at parent education around early intervention.  

Being a Connecticut native, Torri Ann started her educational journey at UConn, earning a BA in Psychology and Speech, Language, and Hearing Science with minors in Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. For her Master’s, Torri Ann moved to DC and attended Gallaudet University, the only University in the world that runs in American Sign Language. Once back from DC, she earned her PhD in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at UConn. Her interest in research comes from wanting to be the best support possible for families and children who are D/deaf and hard of hearing.  

Torri Ann loves to spend her time with her dog, Marah Jade (a deaf retired service dog), family, and baby daughter. They love to go hiking, watch Bluey, and visit Old Sturbridge Village!

Torri Ann hopes to see you in her Lab!

Culture is a beautiful thing that ties into our identities; everyone comes from different cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and traditions. With the upcoming holiday season, it is important to recognize that everyone celebrates different holidays and traditions. By teaching children about different cultures around the world, it can build upon the greater understanding of how everyone’s culture is beautiful and unique while also bringing people together to apricate our differences. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) wrote an article on how you can teach your children about different holidays around the world and why it is important to do so.

To read more, click here!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Childhood amnesia is something that happens to all of us, no matter what. No matter how hard you try to remember, you won’t be able to remember your first birthday, your first steps, or other big moments from our early childhood. In this article we learn about how the developing brain and many other factors shape into why we don’t remember our first few years. A big point made in this article is that we begin remembering personal events only after we develop a concept of self and a rudimentary life narrative.

Learn more about this fascinating topic, Here!

Ben Solomon,

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS