HESP Seminar - Jennifer Markfeld
HESP Seminar - Jennifer Markfeld
Hear from Jennifer Markfeld (HESP) at the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences' upcoming seminar.
Cascading Effects of Caregiver Stress on Language Development: Findings from Infant Siblings and Future Directions for Early Childhood
Abstract: Understanding individual differences in language development in autism is a top priority of autism research, as acquisition of language early in life is consistently linked to long-term outcomes in individuals on the autism spectrum. My dissertation work focused on studying toddlers who are known to be at increased familial likelihood for autism and language disorder (i.e., based on their status as younger siblings of at least one older autistic child) in order to better understand what factors may predict language development. In this talk, I will present two studies pertaining to how caregiver stress relates to child language in these toddlers. In Study I, I will present my work expanding the characterization and measurement of caregiver stress by collecting a measure of stressful life experiences (i.e., objective stressors) in toddlers at increased familial likelihood for autism. In Study II, I examined associations between parenting stress and stressful life events, caregiver linguistic input, and child language outcomes later into childhood (i.e., at age three years), finding that caregivers who endorsed experiencing more stressful life events had toddlers with lower levels of expressive language at age three. I will then discuss my future directions as they pertain to stress measurement and language development in preschoolers during my NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at UMD with Dr. Rachel Romeo.
About: Jennifer is a clinical fellow in speech-language pathology and a PhD student mentored by Dr. Tiffany Woynaroski. She is interested in supporting caregivers of autistic children, the process of autism diagnosis for all ages, and supporting the preferences and perspectives of autistic and neurodiverse voices.