NHMRC Investigator Grant success for Alicia Spittle

Alicia's research vision is to improve the quality of life of children born preterm (born <37 weeks' gestation). Every year 15 million babies worldwide are born preterm. Advances in maternal and neonatal care have improved survival rates for those born early, but rates of morbidity are on the rise. Of the 2,000 babies born very preterm (born <32 weeks) in Australia each year, one in five has a major disability (such as cerebral palsy) and one in two has a developmental impairment (e.g. movement, cognitive or language impairment).

Alicia’s program is directly focused on addressing current knowledge gaps in access to early intervention to improve developmental outcomes for children born preterm. Her program consists of five projects involves trialling digital health solutions (co-designed with end users) to enable early detection of specific developmental impairments and delivery of targeted interventions, thereby improving developmental outcomes for preterm infants. Her research program is directly focused on addressing current knowledge gaps and includes:

1. An RCT (randomised controlled trial) of an early telehealth intervention for preterm infants and their caregivers
2. An RCT of a community-based program for preterm children at preschool age
3. Co-designing and feasibility testing of an app for early cerebral palsy detection
4. Prediction of developmental outcomes in preterm children from early movement video assessments
5. Machine learning for early prediction of cerebral palsy.