Evaluating changes in parent infant interaction during early intervention: Diversity Supplement for 1R03HD113705-01Sharing Developmental, Meta, and Video Data from Preterm Infants Enrolled in the SPEE - Infants born very preterm (<32 weeks of gestation) are at risk of having developmental disabilities including cerebral palsy, coordination impairments, attention deficit and learning disabilities. Impairments including reduced postural control, movement variability, visual motor skills, and motor learning are common during the first months of life and are associated with later developmental disabilities. However, infants born very preterm rarely receive evidence-based therapeutic intervention in the first months of life when basic science and animal intervention studies suggest the greatest efficacy. Barriers to enrollment in services delay the onset of services and delivery models rarely support targeted preventative intervention or enhanced parent engagement during the transition from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to home. Supporting Play Exploration and Development Intervention (SPEEDI) is an evidence-based intervention that uses guided participation to empower parents in reading infant’s behavioral cues, identifying ideal times for interaction, and enriching the environment and learning opportunities. Parents participate in 5 sessions in the 2- 3 weeks prior to NICU discharge while learning principles of engagement, readiness for interaction, and to provide early motor and cognitive learning opportunities. Parents provide 20 minutes of motor and cognitive play based enrichment daily for 12 weeks with bi-weekly physical therapist support (6 sessions). The parent is empowered to determine the infant’s current abilities and advance the activities to the “Just Right Challenge” throughout the 12 weeks, likely continuing after the intervention. The proposed project with support the development of a shared dataset from this clinical trial including developmental data from the infant, parent stress, dyadic interaction, and intervention fidelity data. The shared data will allow other researchers to ask and answer questions ranging from development of preterm infants with and without brain injury to efficacy of intervention. Improved understanding of development and response to intervention will progress rapidly with share data which can be harmonized with other datasets. This data is a crucial step toward meeting NIHs current standards for share data that were not in place when this trial was funded.
