Mother-child interaction and the development of imitation in preterm infants. (360G-Wellcome-084911_Z_08_Z)
Developmental psychology is an area that has intrigued me for many years. In face it was one of the main reasons to study psychology at degree level. The variety of experiences I have had working with children has encouraged a keen interest in the different ways in which children develop. The majority of my work experience has involved working with atypically-developing children in both school and play settings. I also spent some time in Sri Lanka after the Boxing Day Tsunami, where I volunteered in camps for displaced families, and at an orphanage for children with learning difficulties. All of these experiences have demonstrated the importance of social interactions, and not only biological dispositions, in development. Whilst studying my undergraduate degree at Cardiff university, my interest in developmental psychology was reinforced when I was given a chance to work as a research assistant for the research group headed by Dr. Merideth Gattis. This work allowed me to see the ways in which imitation is a skill which is not only interesting in its own right but helps to uncover other social and cognitive processes as well. Melzoff (1995) presented infants with completed or incompleted actions by humans or machines. When offered the chance to imitate, infants completed the actions which had been performed by human models but not those performed by machines. Therefore the imitation demonstrated that infants replicated intended rather than viewed actions; a result that has been replicated in a number of different studies. This ability to understand psychological processes of others has been suggested to be lacking in children with autism (Aldridge, Stone, Sweeney & Bower, 2000). This idea of individual differences in intention understanding (as measured by imitative response) in different populations is of interest to me due to my work experience with both children with disabilities and a group investigating goal directed imitation. I believe a PhD would allow me to combine aspects of both my undergraduate degree and the extensive experience I have acquired over the past seven years of working with children. Once I have completed my PhD, I hope to continue with research looking at social cognition in both normally and atypically developing populations.
Where is this data from?
This data was originally published by The Wellcome Trust. If you see something about your organisation or the funding it has received on this page that doesn't look right you can submit a grantee amendment request. You can hover over codes from standard codelists to see the user-friendly name provided by 360Giving.
Grant Details
Amount Awarded | 70000 |
Applicant Surname | Winstanley |
Approval Committee | WT/NIH Four Year PhD Programme Interview Committee |
Award Date | 2008-02-27T00:00:00+00:00 |
Financial Year | 2007/08 |
Grant Programme: Title | WT/NIH Four Year PhD Studentship |
Internal ID | 084911/Z/08/Z |
Lead Applicant | Miss Alice Winstanley |
Partnership Name | Wellcome Trust-NIH PhD Studentships |
Partnership Value | 70000 |
Planned Dates: End Date | 2012-09-30T00:00:00+00:00 |
Planned Dates: Start Date | 2008-10-01T00:00:00+00:00 |
Recipient Org: Country | United Kingdom |
Region | Wales |
Sponsor(s) | Prof Merideth Gattis |