RESEARCH BY DR. JAYNE STANDLEY Jayne Standley,Ph.D.Researcher and Professor, Florida State University School of Music A longtime researcher and professor in Florida State University School of Music, Dr. Standley is the 2005-2006 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, the Florida State University's highest faculty honor. Her pioneering work in the field of medical music therapy has led to new techniques for treating premature babies. An FSU faculty member since 1976, Standley is recognized throughout the United States as the foremost authority on medical music therapy. In addition to her research activities. Standley has directed and mentored nearly 200 graduate students in their research efforts.

RESEARCH BY DR. JAYNE STANDLEY The PAL® was invented by Florida State University researcher Jayne Standley, Ph.D. Originally envisioned by Dr. Standley more than a decade ago, PAL® has undergone extensive testing, received a U.S. patent and been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Jayne Standley's work has taught her that sometimes music is the best medicine. Sixteen years ago, the Florida State Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Music Therapy started working on PAL, the Pacifier Activated Lullaby device, to teach premature babies how to use a pacifier and feed by reinforcing behavior with lullabies. Now, PAL has been commercialized and is growing in popularity in hospitals to help newborns fully develop quickly, in a natural way. Standley, the director of music therapy at FSU, said she was enlightened with the idea to invent PAL when she was performing research studies in the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and attending an interdisciplinary meeting on Wednesday mornings to obtain subjects in her study. After learning about the large amount of babies that could not be discharged from the hospital in a timely manner due to feeding difficulties, Standley said she realized she might be able to create a solution. "I thought about a research study that I had done previously with infants looking at how well they responded to music early in life, and it occurred to me that music might be an effective reinforcement to teach sucking," Standley said. Standley said that the primary goal of PAL was to assist infants in feeding who were in the NICU and simply because their feeding difficulties were at a cost of two thousand dollars a day. Although it has been a long journey to get PAL where it is today, the creators said they persevered because they knew that the device would bring massive benefits. "We just kept getting these really promising results, so we knew that it would have an impact on excellent care for premature infants, that it would save money because babies would go home from the hospital sooner," Standley said. "So we were thrilled with the results." Although PAL has been in existence for over a decade, it was recently commercialized and made readily available for hospitals everywhere. "It just had to be developed by someone with the corporate money and know-how to know how to create a commercial product, and that's what had happened in the last year or so with Kathy Lovell (CEO of Powers Device Technologies) being able to coordinate that," Standley said. Due to the widespread amount of babies who struggle with feeding and ultimately survival, Standley and her colleagues hope this new marketing and mainstream availability will help PAL aid those in need. "Now that it's commercially available, we hope that lots of hospitals will purchase it and that it will be used worldwide with babies with this behavior problem," Standley said. PAL will also prevent future health problems for premature babies. "We are also hoping that because babies learn to feed more effectively, that fewer will need gastrointestinal tubes installed where the babies never learn to feed and they have to be fed by a tube into the stomach," Standley said. Dr. Jayne Standley's work has taught her that sometimes music is the best medicine.

RESEARCH BY DR. JAYNE STANDLEY

RESEARCH BY DR. JAYNE STANDLEY The PAL® was invented by Florida State University researcher Jayne Standley, Ph.D. Originally envisioned by Dr. Standley more than a decade ago, PAL® has undergone extensive testing, received a U.S. patent and been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.