FACULTY and AFFLIATED SCIENTISTS
Hilary Gomes
Developmental
Neuropsychology
and Electrophysiology
Director: Neuropsychological Center for Children
(212) 650-5720
email: hgomes@earthlink.net
My research has been primarily motivated by my desire to better understand mature language organization, language acquisition in normal children and the processes underlying aberrant language development in impaired populations. In most of my research I have employed event-related potentials (ERPs). ERPs provide a very powerful technique for studying the temporal and spatial patterns of cortical electrical activity during stimulus processing. In September (2001) my first RO1 grant was funded by the National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD). This grant will support both behavioral and electrophysiological studies that will explore auditory sensory memory and attention in children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to normal children and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I believe that deficits in automatic processing and attentional control in the auditory modality may be contributing to difficulties seen in SLI. The grant is a five-year grant and includes funds to establish an electrophysiological laboratory.
Recent publications include:(1) Gomes, H., Dunn, M., Brattson, A., Kurtzberg, D., Kreuzer, J., Vaughan, H.G., Jr., & Ritter, W. (2001). Spatiotemporal maturation of auditory evoked potentials: Obligatory Responses to tones. Developmental Brain Research.
(2) Gomes, H., Molholm, S., Ritter, W., Kurtzberg, D., Vaughan, H. G., Jr., & Cowan, N. (2000). Mismatch negativity in children and adults, and effects of an attended task. Psychophysiology, 37, 807-816.
(3) Gomes, H., Molholm, S., Christodoulou, C., Ritter, W., & Cowan, N. (2000). The development of auditory attention in children. Frontiers in Bioscience, 5, 108-120.
(4) Gomes, H., Sussman, E., Ritter, W., Kurtzberg, D., Vaughan, H. G., Jr., & Cowan, N. (1999). Developmental changes in an electrophysiological measure of auditory sensory memory. Developmental Psychology, 35, 294-302.