Presenter: Bridget Johns − Psychology
Faculty Mentor(s): Dare Baldwin, Diana DeWald
Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation
Thiamine is a crucial nutrient for the body; considerable evidence indicates that its deficiency can negatively impact infants’ health and neurocognitive development. Unfortunately, in Southeast Asia, thiamine deficiency is common due to cultural reliance on thiamine-poor polished white rice as a dietary staple. My research is part of a larger, randomized, controlled trial investigating possible benefits of maternal thiamine supplementation for breastfed babies’ neurocognitive development. I focused on Cambodian mothers’ ability to support infants in secondary engagement; specifically, their skill in facilitating joint attention regarding a novel object. To understand effects of thiamine on maternal joint engagement efforts, we developed a code using a five-point Likert scale to examine mother’s behavioral efforts on four dimensions: presentation of object, joint engagement efforts, contingent responding, and affective tone. Mothers participated in a task where they attempted to initiate and sustain their infant’s attention on a novel object for five 30-second increments (epochs) and were coded on how well they displayed each dimension per epoch. We expected the dimensions’ ratings to display a systemic pattern across each epoch, and mothers who received higher doses of thiamine to have the highest joint engagement codes. Analyses indicate the presence of the predicted systemic patterns but no effect of thiamine dosage.