Social cognition in individuals born preterm.

Faces hold a substantial value for effective social interactions and sharing. Covering faces with masks, due to COVID-19 regulations, may lead to difficulties in using social signals, in particular, in individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions. Daily-life social participation of individuals who were born preterm is of immense importance for their quality of life. Here we examined face tuning in individuals (aged 12.79 ± 1.89 years) who were born preterm and exhibited signs of periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a dominant form of brain injury in preterm birth survivors. For assessing the face sensitivity in this population, we implemented a recently developed experimental tool, a set of Face-n-Food images bordering on the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The key benefit of these images is that single components do not trigger face processing. Although a coarse face schema is thought to be hardwired in the brain, former preterms exhibit substantial shortages in the face tuning not only compared with typically developing controls but also with individuals with autistic spectrum disorders. The lack of correlations between the face sensitivity and other cognitive abilities indicates that these deficits are domain-specific. This underscores impact of preterm birth sequelae for social functioning at large. Comparison of the findings with data in individuals with other neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions provides novel insights into the origins of deficient face processing.

Promoting Language Skills in Children With Neuromotor and Intellectual Disorders: Telepractice at the Time of SARS-CoV-2.

Purpose The aim of this pilot study is to gather preliminary results on the effectiveness of intensive, parent-oriented, telepractice-based intervention to improve language skills in preschool children with neuromotor and intellectual disorders. Method Nine preschool children (M = 63 months, SD = 8.7 months) underwent a telepractice program 4 times a week designed to promote speech, lexical, and syntactic skills. Families were remotely connected from home with the therapists, who controlled the rehabilitation procedures from the hospital. The number of stable phonemes, of understood and repeated words, and of understood and repeated sentences were evaluated as outcome measures 3 months (prebaseline) and 1 week (baseline) before the intervention, immediately after the intervention (T1) and at a 3-month follow-up (T2). Results An increase in the number of stable phonemes was detected after the treatment, even if it was not statistically significant. After the intervention program, there was a significant increase in the number of understood words (ratio T1 vs. baseline: 1.33; 95% CI [1.03, 1.71]) and repeated words (ratio T1 vs. baseline: 1.39; 95% CI [1.00, 1.92]), as well as of understood sentences (ratio T1 vs. baseline: 1.80; 95% CI [1.24, 2.35]) and repeated sentences (ratio T1 vs. baseline: 4.23; 95% CI [1.96, 9.12]). No significant differences were found when comparing all the outcome measures at prebaseline and at baseline. Conclusion An intensive, parent-oriented, telepractice-based intervention has the potential to increase scores of lexical and syntactic tasks in children with neuromotor and intellectual disorders.