Level: Advanced

Intended Audience: Clinicians, teachers, mental health and medical professionals, parents, students, caregivers

Prerequisite: None

Presenter: Sophie Molholm, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and in the Department of Neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prior to joining Dr. John Foxe at Albert Einstein she was an associate professor of psychology and of cognitive neuroscience, and the director of the Children’s Research Unit at the City College of the City University of New York. Dr. Molholm also is a research scientist at the Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. Dr. Molholm’s work is focused on sensory processing in the auditory, visual, and somatosensory domains, and the integration of multisensory inputs. Her work involves characterizing these processes in healthy adults; charting their developmental course over childhood; and translating these findings to understand the neurobiology of developmental disorders, with an emphasis on autism. The primary tools used are high-density electrophysiology and psychophysics. The lab is also collecting genetic samples with the goal of linking phenotype to genotype. Additional interests of Dr. Molholm’s include investigations into speech processing and comprehension, and attentional influences on information processing.

John J. Foxe, PhD,is a translational researcher with a history of research studies on the basic neurophysiology of schizophrenia and autism. His work places special emphasis on the identification of endophenotypic markers in childhood neuropsychiatric diseases and in the linking of these biomarkers to the underlying genotype. Work in his lab has a consistent history of NIH and NSF funding, and a strong record of research productivity (160+ publications). Before joining the faculty at Einstein in January of 2010 (my alma mater), he served for 6 years as the Director of the PhD Program in Cognitive Neuroscience at The City College of New York. He was recruited to Einstein College of Medicine in January of 2010 as Director of Research for the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC), with a mandate to develop and coordinate clinical pediatric research across the college. His lab employs an integrated multi-methodological approach to issues in the cognitive neurosciences, using structural and functional neuroimaging, high-density electrophysiology, imaging genomics, eye tracking, psychophysics and virtual reality to understand the neural basis of basic sensory-perceptual and cognitive functions. The work is translational at its core in that it employs an equal mix of basic-science projects in healthy individuals with clinical studies in patient populations. The approach taken is to first develop novel assays of a given perceptual or cognitive function in healthy individuals, which are then deployed in clinical populations of interest. The core mission of the lab is to understand the underlying neurobiology of developmental disorders, with a specific emphasis on Autism. The central goal is to develop more effective treatments and interventions through establishing basic knowledge and Dr. Foxe and his team has worked extensively in both adolescent Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorders. The lab also has a very extensive history of investigations into the neurophysiology of both basic and complex auditory processing, from investigations of the fundamental mechanisms of frequency representation all the way to high-level speech processing.
Learning Objectives:

1. Describe four paradigms for understanding differences in brain function; visual adaptation, somatosensory adaptation and auditory-visual reaction time task and speech in noise
2. Explore the neurophysiological differences amongst sensory processing disorder, autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children
3. Describe preliminary findings in children with Sensory Processing Disorder

Continuing Education: STAR Institute for Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation is an AOTA Approved Provider of Continuing Education. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.

Upon full completion of the course video, participants must complete and pass a quiz with at least 80% accuracy to receive a certificate of completion.