Development of adaptive communication skills in infants of blind parents

Enhanced maternal behaviors in a mouse model of congenital blindness

In mammals, mothering is one of the most important prosocial female behavior to promote survival, proper sensorimotor, and emotional development of the offspring. Different intrinsic and extrinsic factors can initiate and maintain these behaviors, such as hormonal, cerebral, and sensory changes. Infant cues also stimulate multisensory systems and orchestrate complex maternal responsiveness. To understand the maternal behavior driven by complex sensory interactions, it is necessary to comprehend the individual sensory systems by taking out other senses. An excellent model for investigating sensory regulation of maternal behavior is a murine model of congenital blindness, the ZRDBA mice, where both an anophthalmic and sighted mice are generated from the same litter. Therefore, this study aims to assess whether visual inputs are essential to driving maternal behaviors in mice. Maternal behaviors were assessed using three behavioral tests, including the pup retrieval test, the home cage maternal behavior test, and the maternal aggression test. Our results show that blind mothers (1) took less time to retrieve their offspring inside the nest, (2) spent more time nursing and licking their offspring in the second- and third-week postpartum, and (3) exhibited faster aggressive behaviors when exposed to an intruder male, compared to the sighted counterparts. This study provides evidence that congenitally blind mothers show more motivation to retrieve the pups, care, and protection towards their pups than sighted ones, likely due to a phenomenon of sensory compensation.

Case report: Dancing in the dark: A critical single case study engaging a blind father in the rehabilitation journey of his visually impaired child

Background

Face-to-face visual contact is a key component of the early parent-child interaction, therefore a visual impairment condition of the parent or the child represents a risk factor for dyadic patterns' development.

Aims

The study presents a critical single case of a blind father and a 18-month-old visually impaired child. The study aims to explore changes in the relational functioning of this dyad during an early family-centered intervention.

Methods and procedures

Ten parent-child sessions were videotaped and micro-analytically coded. Data were analyzed through a State Space Grid crossing child's social cues and types of father verbalizations.

Outcomes and results

Findings showed a stable increase in the amount of child social cues over time. Moreover, the dyad exhibited progressive changes in dyadic regulation, stability, and organization. The return time to the “active interaction” region of interest decreased progressively. A reduction was observed also for the time spent by the dyad in the region “no vocal contact.”

Conclusions and implications

This critical single case highlighted the benefits of parental engagement in early interventions for the dyadic regulation in parent-child interaction.

Effects of Congenital Blindness on Ultrasonic Vocalizations and Social Behaviors in the ZRDBA Mouse

Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) at different ages and social contexts, including maternal-pup separation, social play in juveniles, social interactions, and mating in adults. The USVs' recording can be used as an index of sensory detection, internal state, and social motivation. While sensory deprivation may alter USVs' emission and some social behaviors in deaf and anosmic rodents, little is known about the effects of visual deprivation in rodents. This longitudinal study aimed to assess acoustic communication and social behaviors using a mouse model of congenital blindness. Anophthalmic and sighted mice were assayed to a series of behavioral tests at three different ages, namely, the maternal isolation-induced pup USV test and the home odor discrimination and preference test on postnatal day (PND) 7, the juvenile social test on PND 30-35, and the female urine-induced USVs and scent-marking behavior at 2-3 months. Our results evidenced that (1) at PND 7, USVs' total number between both groups was similar, all mice vocalized less during the second isolation period than the first period, and both phenotypes showed similar discrimination and preference, favoring exploration of the home bedding odor; (2) at PND 30-35, anophthalmic mice engaged less in social behaviors in the juvenile play test than sighted ones, but the number of total USVs produced is not affected; and (3) at adulthood, when exposed to a female urine spot, anophthalmic male mice displayed faster responses in terms of USVs' emission and sniffing behavior, associated with a longer time spent exploring the female urinary odor. Interestingly, acoustic behavior in the pups and adults was correlated in sighted mice only. Together, our study reveals that congenital visual deprivation had no effect on the number of USVs emitted in the pups and juveniles, but affected the USVs' emission in the adult male and impacted the social behavior in juvenile and adult mice.

Motherhood Experiences of Visually Impaired and Normally Sighted Women

The present study explores the characteristics of visually impaired mothers’ personal identities as reflected in their individual representations of motherhood taking account of the impact of the specific social context on these representations. The sample included 20 visually impaired (VI) and 21 normally sighted (NS) mothers. In line with the narrative psychological approach to motherhood, each participant gave a narrative account of her related experiences in a semi-structured interview. The transcribed responses were subjected to a thematic analysis aimed at comparing the narratives of visually impaired and normally sighted mothers’ for thematic composition in order to identify shared and impairment specific themes of motherhood experiences. The motherhood experiences were sorted into eight thematic categories: Emotions; Continuity; Personal Development; Connectedness; Challenges; Partner; Roles and Principles; and Calling/Career. While in some categories VI and NS mothers showed similar patterns of experience, such as finding a new purpose in life and developing a new role in the family with the advent of pregnancy (Personal Development), in other categories motherhood experiences were thematized differently, such as VI mothers focused on challenges posed by day-to-day situations, NS mothers were rather concerned with their children’s future (Challenges). The study presents the shared and non-shared aspects of disabled and non-disabled women’s motherhood experiences with the primary aim of demonstrating the potential impact of the prevailing sociocultural norms, and attitudes considering visually impaired mothers on their motherhood experiences.

Non-verbal Adaptation to the Interlocutors' Inner Characteristics: Relevance, Challenges, and Future Directions

Human diversity cannot be denied. In our everyday social interactions, we constantly experience the fact that each individual is a unique combination of characteristics with specific cultural norms, roles, personality, and mood. Efficient social interaction thus requires an adaptation of communication behaviors to each specific interlocutor that one encounters. This is especially true for non-verbal communication that is more unconscious and automatic than verbal communication. Consequently, non-verbal communication needs to be understood as a dynamic and adaptive process in the theoretical modeling and study of social interactions. This perspective paper presents relevance, challenges, and future directions for the study of non-verbal adaptation in social interactions. It proposes that non-verbal adaptability is more pertinently studied as adaptation to interlocutor's inner characteristics (i.e., expectations or preferences) than to interlocutor's behaviors per se, because behaviors are communication messages that individuals interpret in order to understand their interlocutors. The affiliation and control dimensions of the Interpersonal Circumplex Model are proposed as a framework to measure both the interlocutors' inner characteristics (self-reported) and the individuals' non-verbal responses (external coders). These measures can then be compared across different interactions to assess an actual change in behavior tailored to different interlocutors. These recommendations are proposed in the hope of generating more research on the topic of non-verbal adaptability. Indeed, after having gathered the evidence on average effects of non-verbal behaviors, the field can go further than a “one size fits all” approach, by investigating the predictors, moderators, and outcomes of non-verbal adaptation to the interlocutors' inner characteristics.

Visual preferences for direct-gaze faces in infant macaques (Macaca mulatta) with limited face exposure

From birth, human and nonhuman primates attend more to faces with direct gaze compared with averted gaze, and previous studies report that attention to the eyes is linked to the emergence of later social skills. Here, we explored whether early experiences influence attraction to eye contact in infant macaques by examining their attention to face pairs varying in their gaze direction across the first 13 weeks of life. Infants raised by human caretakers had limited conspecific interactions (nursery-reared; N = 16) and were compared to infants raised in rich social environments (mother-reared; N = 20). Both groups looked longer to faces and the eyes of direct compared to averted-gaze faces. Looking to all faces and eyes also increased with age. Nursery-reared infants did not display age-associated increases in attention to direct-gaze faces specifically, suggesting that, while there may be an initial preference for direct-gaze faces from birth, social experiences may support its early development.