Mri findings, looking behaviour and affect recognition in very preterm children: A pilot study.

Children born very preterm often exhibit atypical gaze behaviors, affect recognition difficulties and are at risk for cerebral white matter damage. This study explored links between these sequalae. In 24 12-year-old children born very preterm, ventricle size using Evans and posterior ventricle indices, and corpus callosum area were used to measure white matter thickness. The findings revealed a correlation between less attention towards the eyes and larger ventricle size. Ventricle and posterior corpus callosum sizes were correlated to affect-recognition proficiency. Findings suggest a link between white matter damage, gaze behavior, and affect recognition accuracy, emphasizing a relation with social perception.

Brain MRI findings and their association with visual impairment in young adolescents born very preterm.

PURPOSE: Very preterm birth increases risk for neonatal white matter injury, but there is limited data on to what extent this persists into adolescence and how this relates to ophthalmological outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess brain MRI findings in 12-year-old children born very preterm compared to controls and their association with concurrent ophthalmological outcomes. METHODS: We included 47 children born very preterm and 22 full-term controls (gestational age <32 and >37 weeks, respectively). Brain MRI findings were studied in association with concurrent ophthalmological outcomes at 12-year follow-up. RESULTS: Evans index (0.27 vs 0.25, p<0.001) and a proposed "posterior ventricle index" (0.47 vs 0.45, p=0.018) were increased in children born very preterm. Higher gestational age associated with larger corpus callosum area (ß=10.7, 95%CI 0.59-20.8). Focal white matter lesions were observed in 15 (32%) of very preterm children and in 1 (5%) of full-term controls. Increased posterior ventricle index increased risk for visual acuity ≤1.0 (OR=1.07×1011, 95%CI=7.78-1.48×1021) and contrast sensitivity <0.5 (OR=2.6×1027, 95%CI=1.9×108-3.5×1046). Decreased peritrigonal white matter thickness associated with impaired visual acuity (ß=0.04, 95%CI 0.002-0.07). CONCLUSION: More white matter lesions and evidence of lower white matter volume were found in children born very preterm compared with full-term controls at 12-year follow-up. The association between larger posterior ventricle index and reduced visual acuity and contrast sensitivity suggests disturbances of the posterior visual pathway due to diffuse white matter lesions.

Different aspects of visual perception are important for 12-year social functioning depending on gestational age.

AIM: Perceptual mechanisms in social functioning might promote interventions. We investigated relations between visual perception and social functioning, in preterm children. METHODS: A prospective preterm cohort born in Uppsala County, Sweden, in 2004-2007 and 49 full-term controls were examined at 12 years. Aspects of visual perception, including static shapes, emotions and time to detect biological motion, were related to social functioning and visual acuity. RESULTS: The preterm group comprised 25 extremely preterm children, EPT, born below 28 gestational weeks and 53 children born between 28 and 31 weeks. Preterm children had difficulties in perception of static shapes (p = 0.004) and biological motion (p < 0.001), but not in emotion perception, compared to controls. In the EPT children, poorer shape perception and lower scores on emotion perception were associated with more social problems (p = 0.008) and lower visual acuity (p = 0.004). Shape perception explained more variance in social functioning than emotion perception. In controls, fewer social problems were linked to faster biological motion perception (p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: Static shape and biological motion perception was affected in the preterm groups. Biological motion perception was relevant for social functioning in full-term children. In EPT children, only shape perception was linked to social functioning, suggesting differential visual perception mechanisms for social deficits.

Antenatal steroids and neurodevelopment in 12-year-old children born extremely preterm.

AIM: To investigate neurodevelopmental outcome in 12-year-old children born very preterm in relation to perinatal, neonatal and socioeconomic variables. To examine whether previously described positive effects of antenatal steroids on cognition persist at 12 years. METHODS: Prospective cohort, 78 children with gestational ages 22.7-31.9 weeks, born in 2004-2007 and examined at 12 years of age with cognitive, motor and visual motor integration tasks and compared to an age-matched control group (n = 50). Two preterm subgroups were studied: very preterm children (28-31 gestational weeks, n = 53) and extremely preterm children (22-27 gestational weeks, n = 25). RESULTS: The preterm children had significantly lower scores on all cognitive, motor and visual motor integration tasks than the controls. Gestational age and maternal education influenced associations differently in the two preterm subgroups. Also, severe retinopathy of prematurity demonstrated strong associations to outcome. In the extremely preterm group, administration of antenatal steroids was associated with better cognition, basic attention, word generation and motor skills. CONCLUSION: At 12 years of age, very preterm children born in the 2000s still have deficits across several neurodevelopmental domains compared to term-born peers. Administration of antenatal steroids has long-lasting associations to cognition and motor skills in extremely preterm-born children.

Better Language - Faster Helper: The Relation Between Spontaneous Instrumental Helping Action and Language Ability in Family-Reared and Institutionalized Toddlers.

Background: Prosocial behavior is the key component of social and interpersonal relations. One of the elements of prosociality is helping behavior, which emerges already in early childhood. Researchers have identified several domains of helping behavior: instrumental helping, comforting another person, and sharing resources with others. The development of helping behavior can depend on a number of factors: children's age, the social situation of development, communication skills, and the ability to understand the feelings and needs of another person. Objective: In Study 1, the main goal was to determine the effects of age and cognitive, language, and motor development on instrumental helping skills in early childhood. The goal of Study 2 was to estimate the effects of rearing in an adverse social environment by comparing the capacity for instrumental helping in family-raised and institutionalized children. Design: The authors examined toddlers' (N = 198) ability to initiate spontaneous helping and the factors that may influence it. Cognitive, language, and fine motor skills were measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant and Child Development, 3rd edition. Children's instrumental helping behavior was assessed according to the procedure presented by Warneken and Tomasello, with a few modifications. Results: Study 1 demonstrated that children's ability to initiate helping was dependent on their age: the non-helpers were significantly younger than the helpers. Children's language skills also played a significant role in their helping behavior. The children with higher language skills helped the adult more often and more quickly. Study 2 demonstrated that institutional placement per se was not related to toddlers' ability to initiate helping. Language ability was associated with helping behavior both in institution- and family-reared toddlers. Conclusion: Instrumental helping in early childhood is related to children's age, language skills, and rearing conditions.

Social perception: How do 6-month-old infants look at pointing gestures?

The study explored 6-month-old infants' ability to follow a pointing gesture in a dynamic social context. The infants were presented with a video of a model pointing to one of two toys. The pointing gesture was performed either normally (with arm and hand pointing at the same direction), with a stick, or the model's arm and hand pointing in different directions (at different toys). The results indicate that infants at this age reliably followed pointing performed normally.

Extrapolation and direct matching mediate anticipation in infancy.

Why are infants able to anticipate occlusion events and other people's actions but not the movement of self-propelled objects? This study investigated infant and adult anticipatory gaze shifts during observation of self-propelled objects and human goal-directed actions. Six-month-old infants anticipated self-propelled balls but not human actions. This demonstrates that different processes mediate the ability to anticipate human actions (direct matching) versus self-propelled objects (extrapolation).

How infants look at others' manual interactions: the role of experience.

Human actions are often embedded in contexts of social interactions. However, just a few studies that have explored the development of infants' understanding of other people's manual actions do take this variable into account. In this study, 10- and 18-month-old infants were shown three interactive manual actions which the infants could or could not perform themselves. The infants' gaze shifts to the action target were recorded with an eye tracker. The results indicated that 18-month-old infants look faster to the target than their younger counterparts when they observe actions that they can perform themselves. The results suggest that the infants' own capacity to perform an action facilitates understanding of the goal of the action in a social interaction.

Development of social perception: a conversation study of 6-, 12- and 36-month-old children.

A conversation is made up of visual and auditory signals in a complex flow of events. What is the relative importance of these components for young children's ability to maintain attention on a conversation? In the present set of experiments the visual and auditory signals were disentangled in four filmed events. The visual events were either accompanied by the speech sounds of the conversation or by matched motor sounds and the auditory events by either the natural visual turn taking of the conversation or a matched turn taking of toy trucks. A cornea-reflection technique was used to record the gaze-pattern of subjects while they were looking at the films. Three age groups of typically developing children were studied; 6-month-olds, 1-year-olds and 3-year-olds. The results show that the children are more attracted by the social component of the conversation independent of the kind of sound used. Older children find spoken language more interesting than motor sound. Children look longer at the speaking agent when humans maintain the conversation. The study revealed that children are more attracted to the mouth than to the eyes area. The ability to make more predictive gaze shifts develops gradually over age.

Preverbal infants anticipate that food will be brought to the mouth: an eye tracking study of manual feeding and flying spoons.

This study relies on eye tracking technology to investigate how humans perceive others' feeding actions. Results demonstrate that 6-month-olds (n = 54) anticipate that food is brought to the mouth when observing an adult feeding herself with a spoon. Still, they fail to anticipate self-propelled (SP) spoons that move toward the mouth and manual combing actions directed toward the head. Ten-month-olds (n = 54) and adults (n = 32) anticipate SP spoons; however, only adults anticipate combing actions. These results suggest that goal anticipation during observation of feeding actions develops earlier and is less dependent on directly perceived actions than goal anticipation during observation of other manual actions. These results are discussed in relation to experience and a possible phylogenetic influence on perception and understanding of feeding.

Goal anticipation during action observation is influenced by synonymous action capabilities, a puzzling developmental study.

Eighteen- and 25-month-old human toddlers' ability to manually solve a puzzle and their ability to anticipate the goal during observation of similar actions were investigated. Results demonstrate that goal anticipation during action observation is dependent on manual ability, both on a group level (only 25-month-olds solved the manual task and anticipated the goal during observation) and individually within the older age group (r (xy) = 0.53). These findings suggests a connection between manual ability and the ability to anticipate the goal of others' actions in toddlers, in accordance with the direct matching hypothesis.

Integrated global motion influences smooth pursuit in infants.

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SP) were studied in 5- and 9-month-old infants and adults in response to a rhombus oscillating horizontally behind three spatially separated vertical occluders. During motion, the rhombus vertices were never visible. Thus the perception of the global motion of the rhombus required integration of its moving visible segments. We tested whether infants were able to use such perceived global motion for SP in two different occluder conditions; one in which the occluder was clearly visible to the observer and one in which it was invisible. In adults, the presence of a visible occluder hiding the vertices of the rhombus strongly facilitates the perception of the global motion. It was found that adults and 9-month-olds performed significantly more horizontal SP in the presence of a visible occluder but not 5-month-olds. Furthermore, this tendency was strengthened over single trials, and this temporal pattern was very similar in all age groups. In the invisible occluder condition both adults and infants tracked the segments of the rhombus primarily with vertical SP. It was concluded that the ability to integrate moving object fragments into perceived global motion and use that to regulate SP develops into adult performance by 9 months of age.

Predictive tracking over occlusions by 4-month-old infants.

Two experiments investigated how 16-20-week-old infants visually tracked an object that oscillated on a horizontal trajectory with a centrally placed occluder. To determine the principles underlying infants' tendency to shift gaze to the exiting side before the object arrives, occluder width, oscillation frequency, and motion amplitude were manipulated resulting in occlusion durations between 0.20 and 1.66 s. Through these manipulations, we were able to distinguish between several possible modes of behavior underlying 'predictive' actions at occluders. Four such modes were tested. First, if passage-of-time determines when saccades are made, the tendency to shift gaze over the occluder is expected to be a function of time since disappearance. Second, if visual salience of the exiting occluder edge determines when saccades are made, occluder width would determine the pre-reappearance gaze shifts but not oscillation frequency, amplitude, or velocity. Third, if memory of the duration of the previous occlusion determines when the subjects shift gaze over the occluder, it is expected that the gaze will shift after the same latency at the next occlusion irrespective of whether occlusion duration is changed or not. Finally, if infants base their pre-reappearance gaze shifts on their ability to represent object motion (cognitive mode), it is expected that the latency of the gaze shifts over the occluder is scaled to occlusion duration. Eye and head movements as well as object motion were measured at 240 Hz. In 49% of the passages, the infants shifted gaze to the opposite side of the occluder before the object arrived there. The tendency to make such gaze shifts could not be explained by the passage of time since disappearance. Neither could it be fully explained in terms of visual information present during occlusion, i.e. occluder width. On the contrary, it was found that the latency of the pre-reappearance gaze shifts was determined by the time of object reappearance and that it was a function of all three factors manipulated. The results suggest that object velocity is represented during occlusion and that infants track the object behind the occluder in their 'mind's eye'.

Learning about occlusion: initial assumptions and rapid adjustments.

We examined 6-month-olds abilities to represent occluded objects, using a corneal-reflection eye-tracking technique. Experiment 1 compared infants' ability to extrapolate the current pre-occlusion trajectory with their ability to base predictions on recent experiences of novel object motions. In the first condition infants performed at asymptote ( approximately 2/3 accurate predictions) from the first occlusion passage. In the second condition all infants initially failed to make accurate prediction. Performance, however, reached asymptote after two occlusion passages. This is the first study that demonstrates such rapid learning effects during an occlusion task. Experiment 2 replicates these effects and demonstrates a robust memory effect extending 24h. In occlusion tasks such long-term memory effects have previously only been observed in 14-month-olds (Moore & Meltzoff, 2004).