Southern Illinois University - Obelisk Yearbook (Carbondale, IL)

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babies in the past have tended to study those with additional problems trespiratory problems, for examplel, factors which may have led to the wrong conclusions. tlThe differences tin birth weightl donlt seem to mean a lot by the time the child is three. There arenlt many observable results, Mol- fese said. llWe controlled for these fac- tors in our experiment. If you can control factors like gestational age, the income level of parents, educa- tional level of parents, there isnt much difference? Controlling these variables enabled the Molfeses to test children of the same background. If funding is granted, Molfese hopes to rerun the study with infants of other backgrounds and see if the results hold. In studying the infants, clearance had to be given by the hospitals in- volved for the study. Women who had just given birth were interviewed and told about the research. If they were interested in having their child in the study, the infant was tested while in the hospital. Parents were allowed to observe the thirty to forty-five minute test, conducted at Carbondale Memo- rial and at Stanford in California. The babies were retested at six-month in- tervals and the data studied after each test. ttAt one point, our computer was broken for two years so we couldnlt analyze, we could only give the tests? said Molfese. The tests were completed a year and a half ago and analyzed in the year after the tests. Currently the responses are tape recorded, amplified, and brought back for analysis. Molfese and his col- leagues hope to adapt an Apple Com- puter so that only one machine is needed rather than bringing the re sponses back for analysis. Molfese became interested in the language process while a graduate student at Pennsylvania State where he received his masters in 1970 and 28 ne'nomazs aor Aq 010148 his doctorate in 1972. His wife, Vic- toria, also received her doctorate at Penn State 0979 after completing work for her masters at San Francisco State in 1970. The Molfeses each have their own research programs. Victoria, associate professor of psychology, has studied morbidity and the infants chances of . survival, the impact of fetal monitor- ing on parents, color perception in babies, and communication between the elderly. Dennis, professor of psy- chology, has researched neural lin-' guistics, how the brain is organized to process language, and has begun a long-term research project to study individuals from birth to age 80. While environmental factors are important in language development, the Molfesels study indicates that genetics may be a more important factor than previously thought. Their soon to be published research lindings could lead to procedures to correct and prevent language problems in the future. El -Joyce Vonderheide Features

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the genetic characteristics of their two-billion-year-old ancestors. Yopp and his research group are using 28 selected strains. If Yopp and his SIU-C colleagues are right when they theorize that todayts blue-green algae carry the same genes as their Pre-Cambrian forebears, it opens the possibility of using recombinant DNA techniques, or ttgene-splicing, to transfer the or- ganismst tolerance for arid surround- ings to modern plants such as corn or soybeans. If the idea works, it could mean more food for regions usually considered too dry to grow conven- tional crops. The three-year project is based heavily on nearly 10 years of NASA funded research conducted on blue green algae by Yopp and his SIUC co- investigators, physiologist Donald Miller and phycologist Donald Tin- dall, a specialist in algae. CI -University News Service Features Infant research finds answers How is language processed in the brain? Why are children able to pick up a language so quickly? Is there an innate component that gives some children a bias in learning a lan- guage? Wanting answers to these questions prompted a four-year study by Dennis and Victoria Molfese, SIU-C psychol- ogists. The Molfeses followed 60 chil- dren of low birth weight and normal birth weight from infancy to three years of age, analyzing brain wave tests and comparing those tests with language skills tests given to these children a year ago. The results show a strong correlation between the new- born infanfs brain wave pattern and the childrenis test scores three years later. Information from this and future studies could be a valuable assessment tool, enabling doctors to diagnose infants with language disabilities and hearing problems and correct the s problems. To analyze brain waves, electrodes are attached to the head and the. brains response to stimuli is recorded. A variety of vowel-consonant sounds were fed to newborns and amplified to see how the information was proc- essed. Babies who were able to differ- entiate between the sounds did better on the future language tests. The March of Dimes provided fund- ing for the project, wanting to know if there is a difference in language de- velopment between low birth weight tunder 5V2 poundsi and normal birth weight children. Dennis Molfese noted that people who have studied low birth weight In .9 c; o .. o J: n. x 3: III L o .2 : D

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Dragline simulator-a miniature mine Southern Illinois is the only place in the world you can, with the slight- est stretch of your imagination, oper- ate a 40-million-pound coal mining dragline 14 stories high in a building no larger than a high school gym- nasium. You sit in a bonafIde Bucyrus-Erie dragline pilotls seat surrounded by bonafide Bucyrus-Erie controls in a room resembling as closely as possible a bonaiide dragline cab. As you ma- nipulate the controls you see a giant video screen an apparently huge boom and a toothed shovel swing and dig in what looks like an actual strip mine with farms and green hills around it. Features Behind you, a computer which can be programmed to imitate the actions of any of three makes of draglines keeps track of your errors and spits them out on command. To your right, in the corner, a much smaller Video screen waits to show you an instant replay of your mining operations. ttltls very realistic? said Keith Con- tor, an assistant professor in SIU-C;s department of technology. ttPeople will grab onto something to steady them- selves when they see the boom swing. Experienced operators say the stress and fatigue are the same as on a real draglinefl That may seem hard to believe, since the operators know that-rather than running a machine which is so expensive that major damage could put a small mine out of business- they are moving a boom and bucket no larger than the visible parts of a submarine periscope. The boom and bucket are suspended from a swivel in another room-a sort of sandbox with a painted striprnin- ing landscape for walls. Cameras at- tached to the base of the boom allow a magnified View of the scene and the digging to appear on the big screen in the mock cab-roomi ttThe picture may not be that good? Contor said, ttbut once people get 29 photo by Joe Szewculak