In the current crisis of funding at Columbia, we are seeking your help in funding our research.

Our mother-infant face-to-face communication lab at New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University Medical Center, investigates mother-infant face-to-face communication and infant social and cognitive development. We have shown 1) how this communication predicts attachment and cognition at one year; 2) how maternal distress, such as depression or anxiety, affects this communication. In our new research direction, we are now examining how prenatal toxic exposures, such as second-hand smoke or bisphenol - found in plastics - affect this communication.

Before infants have language, they have a nonverbal language of looking, vocalizing, and facial expressions. This language is so fast and subtle that it is difficult or impossible to see in real time. We study this language by analyzing videotapes of mother-infant interaction, second-by-second. Video microanalysis of mother-infant behavior functions like a social microscope. Our research has shown that infants are so communicative. And they read all the shifts of the parent’s emotions. We have shown that infants affect parents as much as parents affect infants. How this nonverbal language goes when the infant is 4 months, whether babies feel sensed and known, predicts attachment and cognition at one year. The early months of life are so important. 

If more parents understood how much their babies are receiving from them, and if they understood more about what their babies are communicating to them, we could have happier children and happier parents. We could be setting a better foundation for our culture. 

Twenty dedicated students volunteer their time to help us do this research. Half of them code the videotapes. Others film mothers and infants, manage all the media, help with our statistical analyses, or help us manage all the administration of the lab. 

With your donations we can continue and expand our important work. 

Thank you so much! 

Warm regards,

Beatrice Beebe