The impact of daily affective touch on cortisol levels in institutionalized & fostered children.

Institutionalized children are often deprived of affective touch. Such tactile deprivation often leads to constant stress, as measured by the levels of salivary cortisol. We report here the impact of an affective touch program, optimized to activate a specific population of unmyelinated mechanosensitive nerves in the skin called c-tactile afferents (CT) on stress resistance. Two populations of children (age 4-10) were recruited: (i) a cohort living in an orphanage and (ii) a fostered cohort. Both groups received the affective touch program daily for 10-15 min for 5-6 weeks. A cohort of age-matched children living in a family environment acted as a control group and did not receive any instructions for tactile stimulation. Salivary cortisol was collected at the beginning (T1) and at the end (T2) of the study in all three groups. For institutionalized and fostered children there was a significant improvement in the level of cortisol (p < 0.0001) between T1 and T2, which is manifested in the balancing cortisol levels: a decrease where it was elevated and an increase, where the critically low level testified to the distress of the child. Balancing cortisol levels is a process of recovery to normal values, which indicates the restoration of neurohumoral mechanisms of stress regulation. The effect of balancing cortisol levels was more pronounced in the group of fostered children compared to the group of orphanage children (p = 0.0326). The children in the control group had no significant differences.

Ground Rules for Preschooler Exposure to the Digital Environment: A Review of Studies.

Background: The range of digital technologies that children use from an early age has expanded significantly. Most studies demonstrate that preschoolers now spend substantially longer on digital devices and start using them at a younger age. Finding a solution for this challenge has research merits and relevance, as the data on benefits and harm of early preschoolers' exposure to digital devices is contradictory. This poses a need to determine theoretically sound and practically validated criteria that could guide the duration and quality of children's exposure to the digital environment. Objective: To review studies that contain recommendations on preschoolers' exposure to the digital environment, namely, exposure limits and evidence to justify the limitation of preschoolers' time on digital media. Design: The analysis starts by identifying theoretical foundations that researchers use in their studies of children's behavior in the digital environment. This is followed by an overview of 40 studies that include research papers, official reports, and methodological recommendations made by healthcare and governmental organizations. Results: The review identified the following ground rules for children's exposure to the digital environment: to provide for child's interaction with a digital device, to use educational applications that will develop skills appropriate to the child's age, to ensure mandatory supervision of children's engagement by an adult who limits the exposure according to child's age-related capabilities and creates conditions for active exploration of the real rather than a virtual world. Children's cognitive development suffers the most from passive intake of digital content. Conclusion: The data herein can help to develop strategies to promote healthy and educational engagement of children with digital devices and media; however, the review highlights the insufficiency of psychophysiological research that would make it possible to practically validate the recommendations on the duration of preschoolers' exposure to the digital environment.

Integration of Vestibular and Auditory Information in Ontogenesis.

BACKGROUND: We analyzed the hypothesis that the vestibular and auditory systems are integrative functions. METHODS: The study involved 383 children (5.5 ± 2.4 years old). We assessed the conduct of auditory information by recording the auditory brain stem response (ABR), post-rotational nystagmus (PRN), and cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP), and calculated the integration of the parameters. All procedures were carried out using the JACOBI 4 software package. RESULTS: We have found out that PRN, ABR, and cVEMP represent three different groups of integrative functions, each of which is conditioned by its own integrative mechanism. We have proven that PRN and ABR are associated with age, but no relationship was found between cVEMP and age. CONCLUSION: According to our data, the severity of ABR and PRN depended on age, while cVEMP was not associated with age. The functional immaturity of the child's vestibular system, which probably arose in utero, often becomes apparent only at school when reading and writing must be mastered. These skills require maturity of both the vestibule ocular and vestibule spinal functions of the vestibular system.