Feasibility of an observational procedure to enhance early identification of autism spectrum disorder in paediatric settings: A mixed-methods study on an Ecuadorian sample

LAY ABSTRACT

In Ecuador, the low official estimate of the number of persons with autism spectrum disorder suggest that many children are not identified and are not receiving support. Screening tools are short parent-addressed questionnaires used to identify children that may be developing with autism. Their use is recommended, but their application can be perceived as challenging in paediatric routines. Some professionals prefer looking for autism-related behaviours in a child rather than using screening questionnaires. Although a short observation does not replace the use of validated screening questionnaires, tasks to guide the observation of autistic early signs can help professionals decide to screen or refer the family for assessment and early intervention. In this study, we tested observational tasks that could be adapted to the Ecuadorian paediatric contexts.

Effects of two types of numerical problems on the emotions experienced in adults and in 9-year-old children

It is widely acknowledged that emotions and cognition are closely related, and that negative emotions are detrimental on school achievement, especially on mathematical performance. On the other hand, positive emotions have a positive impact on motivation and cognitive abilities underlying the learning processes. Nevertheless, studies about the effects of experienced emotions on problem solving, a specific type of mathematical activity, are sparse. The present research focuses on experienced epistemic and achievement emotions after the resolution of two types of numerical word problems: the application problems, that requires the use of a specific and expected algorithm to be solved and are regularly proposed at school; and the non-application problems, which cannot be solved directly but using different solving strategies. This type of numerical word problems appears less frequently in French school curricula. In experiment 1, 105 adults (M = 24.4 years), of which the majority was university students, were involved in an online experiment with APs and NAPs problems and were asked to rate their experienced emotions after the resolution of the problems. In experiment 2, 65 children aged 9-year-old were asked to individually solve APs and NAPs problems with age-appropriate difficulty and then rate their associated emotions. The adults' sample reported higher epistemic and achievement positive emotions towards APs compared to NAPs. In both adults and children NAPs were more associated to surprise than APs. In children anxiety was more experienced after resolution of NAPs than APs. Results suggest the importance of varying the types of problems proposed in school curricula so that children become accustomed to using different solving strategies. This approach could be useful in decreasing negative emotions toward mathematics such as anxiety, which begins to settle as early as elementary school.

Impact of Innovative Emotion Training in Preschool and Kindergarten Children Aged from 3 to 6 Years

Children's emotional abilities have been shown to be related to academic performance, peer acceptance, and in-school adjustment. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of innovative emotion training designed to promote the emotional abilities of 316 preschool/kindergarten children aged from 3 to 6 years old enrolled in public schools in the first three levels (L1, L2, and L3). Another objective was to examine the transfer effects on language comprehension and mathematics abilities. The emotion training (eight sessions) focused on the identification, comprehension, and expression of emotions and were co-constructed with teachers. Children were tested before and after the training on emotion, language, and mathematics skills. Results showed an improvement in emotional abilities in young children of L1 (3-4 years) and L2 (4-5 years) in the intervention group compared to those in the non-intervention group. Also, although children's emotion basic abilities were correlated with their language comprehension and mathematics abilities, the nature of this link was not demonstrated to be causal. Findings are discussed in regard to the influence of the level and in regard to links with academic variables.

Multisensory Texture Perception in Individuals with Williams Syndrome

The sensory profile of people with Williams syndrome (WS) is characterised by atypical visual and auditory perceptions that affect their daily lives and learning. However, no research has been carried out on the haptic perception, in particular in multisensory (visual and haptic) situations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the communication of texture information from one modality to the other in people with WS. Children and adults with WS were included, as well as typically developing (TD) participants matched on chronological age (TD-CA), and TD children matched on mental age (TD-MA). All participants (N = 69) completed three matching tasks in which they had to compare two fabrics (same or different): visual, haptic and visuo-haptic. When the textures were different, the haptic and visual performances of people with WS were similar to those of TD-MA participants. Moreover, their visuo-haptic performances were lower than those of the two TD groups. These results suggest a delay in the acquisition of multisensory transfer abilities in individuals with WS. A positive link between MA and visual and visuo-haptic abilities only in people with WS suggests that they could benefit from an early intervention to develop their abilities to process and transfer multisensory information.

Maternal Voice and Tactile Stimulation Modulate Oxytocin in Mothers of Hospitalized Preterm Infants: A Randomized Crossover Trial

Prematurity is a major risk factor for perinatal stress and neonatal complications leading to systemic inflammation and abnormal mother-infant interactions. Oxytocin (OT) is a neuropeptide regulating the inflammatory response and promoting mother-infant bonding. The release of this hormone might be influenced by either vocal or tactile stimulation. The main objective of the current randomized, crossover, clinical trial was to assess the salivary OT/cortisol balance in mothers following the exposure of their baby born preterm to two types of sensorial interventions: maternal voice without or with contingent tactile stimulation provided by the mother to her infant. Among the 26 mothers enrolled, maternal voice intervention alone had no effect on OT and cortisol levels in the mothers, but when associated with tactile stimulation, it induced a significant increase in maternal saliva oxytocin (38.26 ± 30.26 pg/mL before vs 53.91 ± 48.84 pg/mL after, p = 0.02), particularly in the mothers who delivered a female neonate. Maternal voice intervention induced a significant reduction in cortisol and an increase in OT levels in mothers when the maternal voice with a tactile stimulation intervention was performed first. In conclusion, exposure to the maternal voice with a contingent tactile stimulation was associated with subtle changes in the maternal hormonal balance between OT and cortisol. These findings need to be confirmed in a larger sample size and may ultimately guide caregivers in providing the best intervention to reduce parental stress following preterm delivery.

Pretend play-based training improves some socio-emotional competences in 5-6-year-old children: A large-scale study assessing implementation

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of a pretend play-based training in 5-6-year-old children in a large scale school context on emotion comprehension, emotion regulation, prosocial behaviour and on their pretend play competences. The analysis of implementation variables was carried out in order to ensure program implementation quality in the experimental group. Results show an improvement in emotion comprehension and a decrease in aggressive behavioural responses in children in the experimental group (n = 101) compared to those in the control group (n = 79). Findings are discussed in regard to implementation outcomes and the influence of this form of play on the improvement of these variables.

The effects of Swiss summer camp on the development of socio-emotional abilities in children

This quasi-experimental research explores the relationship between participation in two-week summer camps and changes in children's altruism and self-esteem. Data were collected from 256 children aged 6 to 16 years. A self-reported altruism scale, a self-evaluation questionnaire and a temperament measure (EAS) were administered on two occasions either two weeks apart during the summer holidays or in class before and after the autumn holidays. The responses of 145 children attending summer camps were compared with those of 111 pupils. A significant increase in the altruism score was found between the pre-test and post-test in the camp condition, but no change in the children's self-esteem was found with the entire sample. Exploratory analyses suggest variables that may be associated with more favourable participation in summer camps; certain dimensions of temperament are among them, as well as factors related to the camps themselves. Differences in the increase of altruism and self-esteem scores in summer camp were observed according to the identified child profiles. The limitations of this work are highlighted before proposing perspectives for future research.

Perception, Beliefs, and Causal Attribution of Autism Early Signs in Ecuadorian General Population

The identification and diagnosis of children with autism currently rely on behavioral presentation and developmental history. Cultural norms and other socio-demographic factors can influence what is expected or non-expected behaviors in a developing child. Perceptions, beliefs, and causal attribution of early signs can influence families’ help-search behaviors. Lack of recognition of autism’s first manifestations can critically delay the age of diagnosis, the provision of informed guidance to families, and the implementation of adapted interventions during the critical period of early development. Furthermore, a lack of understanding of early signs as the manifestations of a developmental condition may increase stigma and non-conventional explanations. Still, cultural and socio-demographic factors are largely understudied, particularly in low-and middle-income settings. Based on the hypothesis that non-specialists such as family members and friends are one of the first sources of referral in Latin American contexts, we aimed to study the general population’s perceptions and the explanatory causes of autism’s early signs. One-hundred-and-eighty-three Ecuadorian adults responded to a questionnaire developed for this study, describing sixteen ASD-related behaviors. Results indicated that, with the exemption of language impairment and self-injurious behaviors, a substantial proportion of participants did not endorse many behaviors as “concerning and requiring professional attention.” Also, language impairment was the only behavior identified as related to a developmental disorder. Additionally, most participants attributed the majority of behaviors listed in the questionnaire to causes unrelated to ASD, such as child personality. We discuss the impact of those findings in clinical practice and on awareness programs.

Emotion regulation in blind and visually impaired children aged 3 to 12 years assessed by a parental questionnaire

Emotion regulation develops from the earliest years of a child's life and mostly through visual information. Considering the importance of emotion regulation in daily life situations, it is important to study the effect of visual experience on the development of this ability. This study is the first to examine the effect of visual experience and age in emotion regulation by comparing groups of children with different visual status and age. For this purpose, after testing the reliability and consistency of the French version of Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC-vf) with 245 parents of blind, visually impaired and sighted children aged 3-5, 6-8 or 9-12 years, we conducted analyses on the effect of visual status and age on emotion regulation composite scores. The first result confirmed that the ERC-vf can be reliably used on populations of blind and visually impaired children. The second result revealed an effect of visual status on ER composite scores of emotion regulation: Blind children and visually impaired children each had significantly lower composite scores than sighted children. Moreover, the effect of age and the interaction between age and visual status were not significant on ER composite scores. The ER subscale results suggest, however, that age may have a variable effect for blind and visually impaired children as blind children's scores become lower and those of visually impaired children become equal to sighted children with age. The results of our study may help the children's entourage to better adapt their interactions in a context of visual impairment.

Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Individuals with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) experience a combination of severe cognitive and motor impairments frequently associated with additional sensory deficits and numerous medical disorders. The purpose of the present study was to propose an experimental paradigm based on eye-tracking that combines various pre-existing tasks from infancy research as an assessment tool. This would enable the investigation of social-emotional abilities in nine young individuals with PIMD through their visual preferences for different types of stimuli. The first objective was to test the feasibility of this paradigm, by expecting individuals to look more at the tasks’ presentation screen than elsewhere during its implementation. The second objective was to investigate whether PIMD individuals exhibit visual preferences for (a) biological (vs. non-biological) motion, (b) socially salient (vs. non-social) scenes, (c) the facial area of the eyes (vs. the mouth), (d) happy (vs. angry) faces, (e) objects of joint attention (vs. non-looked at ones), and for (f) prosocial (vs. anti-social) behaviors similar to those of a control group of typically developing children aged two years on average. Overall, the feasibility of this paradigm proved to be good, resulting in high individual looking rates that were not affected by the presentation or the content of the tasks. Analyses of individual social-emotional abilities, supported by the visual preference patterns of each PIMD individual, firstly revealed strong—but expected—variability both within and between subjects, and secondly highlighted some individual task-specific abilities although few similarities between these individual results and those of the control group were found. These findings underline the great relevance of using this type of paradigm for assessing PIMD individuals and thus contribute to a better understanding of their social and emotional development.

Emotion knowledge, social behaviour and locomotor activity predict the mathematic performance in 706 preschool children

What are the foundational abilities that young children must develop at the beginning of school for their future academic success? Little is known about how emotion knowledge, social behaviour, and locomotor activity are associated and how these abilities may be predictors of academic-mathematic performance (less correlated with the children’s SES than pre-reading and linguistic achievement) in a large cohort of preschool children. Here we show that emotion knowledge, locomotor activity, social behaviour, and academic-mathematic performance are interrelated in 706 French preschool children aged 3 to 6. Mediation analyses reveal that the increase in academic-mathematic performance is explained by the increases in emotion knowledge and social behaviour and, in turn, children with a greater comprehension of emotions tend to have better locomotor skills and higher academic-mathematic scores. Additionally, sequential mediation analysis reveals that the increase in emotion knowledge, locomotor activity and social behaviour partially explains the increase in academic-mathematic performance. These results are discussed in relation to three possible mechanisms. Our findings are consistent with the political and scientific consensus on the importance of social-emotional abilities in the academic world at the beginning of school and suggest adding locomotor activity to these foundational abilities.

A study on visual preference for social stimuli in typical Ecuadorian preschoolers as a contribution to the identification of autism risk factors

The goal of this study was to examine the visual preference towards socially salient stimuli, using a low-cost eye-tracking device in a group of typically developing (TD) Ecuadorian preschoolers aged 11 to 60 months, from rural and urban areas, and from families with low to high socioeconomic status (SES). Series of original stimuli inspired by those used in Western experiments on the early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were proposed in two eye-tracking tasks. Two types of movements (human vs. object) were presented in task 1, and dynamic speaking faces in task 2. Parental perceptions of the adaptability of the low-cost eye-tracking device used here were also investigated through a questionnaire. The analyses of mean fixation times showed a visual preference for human movements compared to moving objects whatever age, residency location or SES. In task 2, visual preference for the mouth's area compared to the eyes' area was observed in specific conditions, modulated by residency location and SES but not by age. The analyses of the parental perception indicated that the eye-tracking technique is well accepted. The findings suggest that these stimuli, along with the experimental procedure and low-cost eye-tracking device used in the present study may be a relevant tool that can be used in clinical settings as a contribution to the early identification of at-risk factors of ASD in low- and middle-income contexts.

Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: Study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children

Tactile books for blind children generally contain tactile illustrations referring to a visual world that can be difficult to understand. This study investigates an innovative way to present content to be explored by touch. Following embodied approaches and evidence about the advantages of manipulations in tactile processing, we examined 3D miniatures that children explored using their middle and index fingers to simulate leg movements. This “Action simulations by finger gestures–ASFG” procedure has a symbolic relevance in the context of blindness. The aim of the present study was to show how the ASFG procedure facilitates the identification of objects by blind and sighted children. Experiment 1 examined the identification of 3D miniatures of action objects (e.g. the toboggan, trampoline) by 8 early blind and 15 sighted children, aged 7 to 12, who explored with the ASFG procedure. Results revealed that objects were very well identified by the two groups of children. Results confirmed hypotheses that ASFG procedures are relevant in the identification process regardless of the visual status of subjects. Experiment (control) 2 studied identification of tactile pictures of same action objects by 8 different early blind and 15 sighted children, aged 7 to 12. Results confirmed that almost all objects obtained lower recognition scores in tactile pictures than in 3D miniatures by both groups and showed surprisingly higher scores in blind children than in sighted children. Taken together, our study provides evidence of the contribution of sensorimotor simulation in the identification of objects by touch and brings innovative solutions in book design for blind people. Moreover, it means that only the ASFG procedure has a very inclusive potential to be relevant for a larger number of subjects, regardless of their visual skills.

Influence of swaddling on tactile manual learning in preterm infants

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Swaddling is a well-known technique in developmental care programs as there is some evidence that swaddling is an appropriate stress-reducing method for preterm infants in the NICU. However, no experimental study has investigated the influence of swaddling in a learning context. This study aimed to assess the impact of swaddling on tactile manual abilities in preterm infants.

METHODS

Two phases were introduced for all infants: habituation (successive presentation of the same object, prism or cylinder in the left hand), followed by discrimination (presentation of a new-shaped object). The infants were assigned to one of the two conditions (swaddled; non-swaddled).

RESULTS

Forty preterm infants were included (between 28 and 35 weeks' postconceptional age). First, swaddled and non-swaddled infants exhibited similar tactile habituation abilities. However, all infants needed more time and more trials to habituate to the cylinder than to the prism. Second, they all exhibited an effective discrimination, but the importance of the increase in holding time for the new-shaped object varied according to the habituated-shape and the condition. Moreover, stress intensity was higher in non-swaddled infants during tactile exploration. Finally, infants with greater previous swaddling experience during the week preceding the test took more time and more trials to habituate to the object, regardless of the condition.

CONCLUSION

Swaddling preterm infants during sensory learning did not influence the tactile memorization process but would improve the use of their attentional resources. Swaddling seems to provide favorable conditions for sensory learning by improving attention to tactile stimuli.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

This trial, EMMASENS, has been registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov (identifier NCT04315428).

Prosocial lying in children between 4 and 11 years of age: The role of emotional understanding and empathy

This study examined whether emotional understanding and empathy were predictors of prosocial lying in children aged 4 to 11 years. A total of 144 children participated in the study. To assess children's prosocial lying, we used the Helping Scenario, a classical experimental paradigm that allows children to lie to help others at their own expense. Children's emotional understanding was assessed using the Test of Emotion Comprehension, a test that measures the nine components of emotional understanding. Children's empathy was assessed using the Griffith Empathy Measure, a questionnaire completed by parents that measures affective and cognitive empathy. Results indicated that emotional understanding plays a crucial role in the development of children's ability to produce prosocial lies from 4 to 11 years of age. However, we found no significant relationship between empathy and prosocial lying. Finally, our results confirm that as children grew up, they lied more and more effectively. Overall, the results allow us to better understand the factors that contribute to the emergence and development of children's ability to produce prosocial lies.

The effects of a 'pretend play-based training' designed to promote the development of emotion comprehension, emotion regulation, and prosocial behaviour in 5- to 6-year-old Swiss children

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pretend play-based training designed to promote the development of socio-emotional competences. 79 children aged 5 to 6 years were evaluated before and after a pretend play-based training. The experimental group (39 children) received this programme on emotion comprehension, negative emotion regulation, and prosocial behaviour one hour a week for eleven weeks during class hours, while the control group (40 children) received no specific intervention. The programme was implemented by 5 teachers. The results show improvements in the ability to understand emotions in children who benefited from the training. These findings are discussed in the broader context of using this form of play as a privileged pedagogical tool to allow children to develop these competences.

Cross-Cultural and Environmental Influences on Facial Emotional Discrimination Sensitivity in 9-Year-Old Children from Swiss and Vietnamese Schools

Abstract. The Other Race Effect (ORE), i.e., recognition facilitation for own-race faces, is a well-established phenomenon with broad evidence in adults and infants. Nevertheless, the ORE in older children is poorly understood, and even less so for emotional face processing. This research samples 87 9-year-old children from Vietnamese and Swiss schools. In two separate studies, we evaluated the children’s abilities to perceive the disappearance of emotions in Asian and Caucasian faces in an offset task. The first study evaluated an “emotional ORE” in Vietnamese-Asian, Swiss-Caucasian, and Swiss-Multicultural children. Offset times showed an emotional ORE in Vietnamese-Asian children living in an ethnically homogeneous environment, whereas mixed ethnicities in Swiss children seem to have balanced performance between face types. The second study compared socioemotionally trained versus untrained Vietnamese-Asian children. Vietnamese children showed a strong emotional ORE and tend to increase their sensitivity to emotion offset after training. Moreover, an effect of emotion consistent with previous observation in adults could suggest a cultural sensitivity to disapproval signs. Taken together, the results suggest that 9-year-old children can present an emotional ORE, but that a heterogeneous environment or an emotional training could strengthen face-processing abilities without reducing skills on their own-group.

The cross-modal transfer of emotional information from voices to faces in 5-, 8- and 10-year-old children and adults: An eye-tracking study

The present study examined the evolution of emotional cross-modal transfer throughout childhood compared to adulthood, using an experimental design first used with infants. We studied whether verbal children spontaneously look at emotional faces differently depending on the emotional voices previously heard, demonstrating a real intrinsic understanding of the emotion. Thus, sequences of emotional (happy vs. angry) cross-modal transfer were individually presented to 5-, 8- and 10-year-old children and adults. Spontaneous ocular behaviors toward the visual stimuli were recorded by eye-tracking. Results of the emotional cross-modal transfer suggested that participants looked spontaneously longer at the congruent face. However, this result was significantly revealed only as of age 8 with the happy voice and as of age 10 with the angry voice. Thus, the modulation of behavior indicators related to the control of the ability to extract amodal emotional information and spontaneously match the congruent information seems to increase with age and depends on the specific emotion presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional facial perception development in 7, 9 and 11 year-old children: The emergence of a silent eye-tracked emotional other-race effect

The present study examined emotional facial perception (happy and angry) in 7, 9 and 11-year-old children from Caucasian and multicultural environments with an offset task for two ethnic groups of faces (Asian and Caucasian). In this task, participants were required to respond to a dynamic facial expression video when they believed that the first emotion presented had disappeared. Moreover, using an eye-tracker, we evaluated the ocular behavior pattern used to process these different faces. The analyses of reaction times do not show an emotional other-race effect (i.e., a facility in discriminating own-race faces over to other-race ones) in Caucasian children for Caucasian vs. Asian faces through offset times, but an effect of emotional face appeared in the oldest children. Furthermore, an eye-tracked ocular emotion and race-effect relative to processing strategies is observed and evolves between age 7 and 11. This study strengthens the interest in advancing an eye-tracking study in developmental and emotional processing studies, showing that even a "silent" effect should be detected and shrewdly analyzed through an objective means.

Multisensory Gains in Simple Detection Predict Global Cognition in Schoolchildren

The capacity to integrate information from different senses is central for coherent perception across the lifespan from infancy onwards. Later in life, multisensory processes are related to cognitive functions, such as speech or social communication. During learning, multisensory processes can in fact enhance subsequent recognition memory for unisensory objects. These benefits can even be predicted; adults' recognition memory performance is shaped by earlier responses in the same task to multisensory - but not unisensory - information. Everyday environments where learning occurs, such as classrooms, are inherently multisensory in nature. Multisensory processes may therefore scaffold healthy cognitive development. Here, we provide the first evidence of a predictive relationship between multisensory benefits in simple detection and higher-level cognition that is present already in schoolchildren. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the extent to which a child (N = 68; aged 4.5-15years) exhibited multisensory benefits on a simple detection task not only predicted benefits on a continuous recognition task involving naturalistic objects (p = 0.009), even when controlling for age, but also the same relative multisensory benefit also predicted working memory scores (p = 0.023) and fluid intelligence scores (p = 0.033) as measured using age-standardised test batteries. By contrast, gains in unisensory detection did not show significant prediction of any of the above global cognition measures. Our findings show that low-level multisensory processes predict higher-order memory and cognition already during childhood, even if still subject to ongoing maturation. These results call for revision of traditional models of cognitive development (and likely also education) to account for the role of multisensory processing, while also opening exciting opportunities to facilitate early learning through multisensory programs. More generally, these data suggest that a simple detection task could provide direct insights into the integrity of global cognition in schoolchildren and could be further developed as a readily-implemented and cost-effective screening tool for neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly in cases when standard neuropsychological tests are infeasible or unavailable.

Beyond executive functions, creativity skills benefit academic outcomes: Insights from Montessori education

Studies have shown scholastic, creative, and social benefits of Montessori education, benefits that were hypothesized to result from better executive functioning on the part of those so educated. As these previous studies have not reported consistent outcomes supporting this idea, we therefore evaluated scholastic development in a cross-sectional study of kindergarten and elementary school-age students, with an emphasis on the three core executive measures of cognitive flexibility, working memory update, and selective attention (inhibition). Two hundred and one (201) children underwent a complete assessment: half of the participants were from Montessori settings, while the other half were controls from traditional schools. The results confirmed that Montessori participants outperformed peers from traditional schools both in academic outcomes and in creativity skills across age groups and in self-reported well-being at school at kindergarten age. No differences were found in global executive functions, except working memory. Moreover, a multiple mediations model revealed a significant impact of creative skills on academic outcomes influenced by the school experience. These results shed light on the possibly overestimated contribution of executive functions as the main contributor to scholastic success of Montessori students and call for further investigation. Here, we propose that Montessori school-age children benefit instead from a more balanced development stemming from self-directed creative execution.

Early Adaptive Functioning Trajectories in Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background

In preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptom, severity has a negative impact on the development of adaptive functioning, with critical consequences on the quality of life of those children. Developmental features such as reduced social interest or the presence of behavioral problems can further impede daily life learning experiences.

Objectives

The first aim of this study is to confirm the negative impact of high symptom severity on adaptive functioning trajectories in preschoolers with ASD. The second objective intends to explore whether reduced social interest and severe behavioral problems negatively affect developmental trajectories of adaptive functioning in young children with ASD.

Methods

In total, 68 children with ASD and 48 age and gender-matched children with typical development (TD) between 1.6 and 6 years were included in our study, and longitudinal data on adaptive functioning were collected (mean length of the longitudinal data collection was 1.4 years ± 0.6). Baseline measures of symptom severity, social interest, and behavioral problems were also obtained.

Results

We confirmed that children with ASD show parallel developmental trajectories but a significantly lower performance of adaptive functioning compared with children with TD. Furthermore, analyses within ASD children demonstrated that those with higher symptom severity, reduced social interest, and higher scores of behavioral problems exhibited especially lower or faster declining trajectories of adaptive functioning.

Conclusions

These findings bolster the idea that social interest and behavioral problems are crucial for the early adaptive functioning development of children with autism. The current study has clinical implications in pointing out early intervention targets in children with ASD.

Adults' visual recognition of actions simulations by finger gestures (ASFGs) produced by sighted and blind individuals

The present study examines the visual recognition of action simulations by finger gestures (ASFGs) produced by sighted and blind individuals. In ASFGs, fingers simulate legs to represent actions such as jumping, spinning, climbing, etc. The question is to determine whether the common motor experience of one’s own body is sufficient to produce adequate ASFGs or whether the possibility to see gestures from others are also necessary to do it. Three experiments were carried out to address this question. Experiment 1 examined in 74 sighted adults the recognition of 18 types of ASFGs produced by 20 blindfolded sighted adults. Results showed that rates of correct recognition were globally very high, but varied with the type of ASFG. Experiment 2 studied in 91 other sighted adults the recognition of ASFGs produced by 10 early blind and 7 late blind adults. Results also showed a high level of recognition with a similar order of recognizability by type of ASFG. However, ASFGs produced by early blind individuals were more poorly recognized than those produced by late blind individuals. In order to match data of recognition obtained with the form that gestures are produced by individuals, two independant judges evaluated prototypical and atypical attributes of ASFG produced by blindfolded sighted, early blind and late blind individuals in Experiment 3. Results revealed the occurrence of more atypical attributes in ASFG produced by blind individuals: their ASFGs transpose more body movements from a character-viewpoint in less agreement with visual rules. The practical interest of the study relates to the relevance of including ASFGs as a new exploratory procedure in tactile devices which are more apt to convey action concepts to blind users/readers.

Preterm infant showed better object handling skills in a neonatal intensive care unit during silence than with a recorded female voice

AIM

This study compared whether preterm infants showed better tactile abilities during silence or when they heard a prerecorded female voice at different intensities.

METHODS

We studied 74 preterm infants of 28-35 weeks' postconceptional age who were admitted to a French neonatal intensive care unit from 2014 to 2017. They were presented with wooden objects, one smooth and one angled, at various points during silence (n = 26) or while listening to a female voice at +5 (n = 24) or +15 decibels (n = 24) inside their incubator. We compared the conditions to see if there was any difference in how the infants handled the objects and also compared familiar and unfamiliar objects.

RESULTS

The preterm infants showed better handling skills and only displayed effective discrimination, during silence. We found that 27.1% of the infants exposed to female voices failed to get habituated to the object, compared to 7.7% in the silence condition (p < 0.05) and success during the voice conditions required more trials (6.1 vs. 5.3) than the silence condition (p = 0.05). The different voice intensities made no difference.

CONCLUSION

Being exposed to a female voice had a negative impact on preterm infants' tactile sensory learning, regardless of its intensity.

The regulation of emotions in adolescents: Age differences and emotion-specific patterns

Two experiments addressed the issue of age-related differences and emotion-specific patterns in emotion regulation during adolescence. Experiment 1 examined emotion-specific patterns in the effectiveness of reappraisal and distraction strategies in 14-year-old adolescents (N = 50). Adolescents were instructed to answer spontaneously or to downregulate their responses by using either distraction or cognitive reappraisal strategies before viewing negative pictures and were asked to rate their emotional state after picture presentation. Results showed that reappraisal effectiveness was modulated by emotional content but distraction was not. Reappraisal was more effective than distraction at regulating fear or anxiety (threat-related pictures) but was similar to distraction regarding other emotions. Using the same paradigm, Experiment 2 examined in 12-year-old (N = 56), 13-year-old (N = 49) and 15-year-old adolescents (N = 54) the age-related differences a) in the effectiveness of reappraisal and distraction when implemented and b) in the everyday use of regulation strategies using the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Results revealed that regulation effectiveness was equivalent for both strategies in 12-year-olds, whereas a large improvement in reappraisal effectiveness was observed in 13- and 15-year-olds. No age differences were observed in the reported use of reappraisal, but older adolescents less frequently reported using distraction and more frequently reported using the rumination strategy. Taken together, these experiments provide new findings regarding the use and the effectiveness of cognitive regulation strategies during adolescence in terms of age differences and emotion specificity.

Fragility of haptic memory in human full-term newborns

BACKGROUND

Numerous studies have established that newborns can memorize tactile information about the specific features of an object with their hands and detect differences with another object. However, the robustness of haptic memory abilities has already been examined in preterm newborns and in full-term infants, but not yet in full-term newborns. This research is aimed to better understand the robustness of haptic memory abilities at birth by examining the effects of a change in the objects' temperature and haptic interference.

METHODS

Sixty-eight full-term newborns (mean postnatal age: 2.5 days) were included. The two experiments were conducted in three phases: habituation (repeated presentation of the same object, a prism or cylinder in the newborn's hand), discrimination (presentation of a novel object), and recognition (presentation of the familiar object). In Experiment 1, the change in the objects' temperature was controlled during the three phases.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Results reveal that newborns can memorize specific features that differentiate prism and cylinder shapes by touch, and discriminate between them, but surprisingly they did not show evidence of recognizing them after interference. As no significant effect of the temperature condition was observed in habituation, discrimination and recognition abilities, these findings suggest that discrimination abilities in newborns may be determined by the detection of shape differences. Overall, it seems that the ontogenesis of haptic recognition memory is not linear. The developmental schedule is likely crucial for haptic development between 34 and 40 GW.

What Is the Influence of Morphological Knowledge in the Early Stages of Reading Acquisition Among Low SES Children? A Graphical Modeling Approach

Children from low-SES families are known to show delays in aspects of language development which underpin reading acquisition such as vocabulary and listening comprehension. Research on the development of morphological skills in this group is scarce, and no studies exist in French. The present study investigated the involvement of morphological knowledge in the very early stages of reading acquisition (decoding), before reading comprehension can be reliably assessed. We assessed listening comprehension, receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, morphological awareness as well as decoding, word reading and non-verbal IQ in 703 French first-graders from low-SES families after 3 months of formal schooling (November). Awareness of derivational morphology was assessed using three oral tasks: Relationship Judgment (e.g., do these words belong to the same family or not? heat-heater … ham-hammer); Lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who runs is a …? (runner)]; and Non-lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who lums is a…? (lummer)]. The tasks differ on implicit/explicit demands and also tap different kinds of morphological knowledge. The Judgement task measures the phonological and semantic properties of the morphological relationship and the Sentence Completion tasks measure knowledge of morphological production rules. Data were processed using a graphical modeling approach which offers key information about how skills known to be involved in learning to read are organized in memory. This modeling approach was therefore useful in revealing a potential network which expresses the conditional dependence structure between skills, after which recursive structural equation modeling was applied to test specific hypotheses. Six main conclusions can be drawn from these analyses about low SES reading acquisition: (1) listening comprehension is at the heart of the reading acquisition process; (2) word reading depends directly on phonemic awareness and indirectly on listening comprehension; (3) decoding depends on word reading; (4) Morphological awareness and vocabulary have an indirect influence on word reading via both listening comprehension and phoneme awareness; (5) the components of morphological awareness assessed by our tasks have independent relationships with listening comprehension; and (6) neither phonemic nor morphological awareness influence vocabulary directly. The implications of these results with regard to early reading acquisition among low SES groups are discussed.

Are 6-month-old human infants able to transfer emotional information (happy or angry) from voices to faces? An eye-tracking study

The present study examined whether 6-month-old infants could transfer amodal information (i.e. independently of sensory modalities) from emotional voices to emotional faces. Thus, sequences of successive emotional stimuli (voice or face from one sensory modality -auditory- to another sensory modality -visual-), corresponding to a cross-modal transfer, were displayed to 24 infants. Each sequence presented an emotional (angry or happy) or neutral voice, uniquely, followed by the simultaneous presentation of two static emotional faces (angry or happy, congruous or incongruous with the emotional voice). Eye movements in response to the visual stimuli were recorded with an eye-tracker. First, results suggested no difference in infants’ looking time to happy or angry face after listening to the neutral voice or the angry voice. Nevertheless, after listening to the happy voice, infants looked longer at the incongruent angry face (the mouth area in particular) than the congruent happy face. These results revealed that a cross-modal transfer (from auditory to visual modalities) is possible for 6-month-old infants only after the presentation of a happy voice, suggesting that they recognize this emotion amodally.

Infants’ haptic perception of object unity in rotating displays

Four-month-old infants were allowed to manipulate, without vision, two rings attached to a bar that permitted each ring to undergo rotary motion against a fixed surface. In different conditions, the relative motions of the rings were rigid, independent, or opposite, and they circled either the same fixed point outside the zone of manipulation or spatially separated points. Infants’ perception of the ring assemblies were affected by the nature of the rotary motion in two ways. First, infants perceived a unitary object when the felt ends of the object underwent a common, rigid rotary motion; perception of object unity was stronger in this condition than when the ends underwent either independent or opposite rotary motions. Second, infants perceived two distinct objects when the felt ends of the objects underwent independent rotary motions that centred on distinct fixed points. Perception of the distinctness of the objects was less clear when the ends underwent opposite or independent rotary motions that centred on a common fixed point. These findings provide the first evidence that infants are sensitive to rotary motion patterns and can extrapolate a global pattern of rigid motion from the distinct, local velocities that they produce and experience at their two hands.

Corrigendum: Brief Report: A Preference for Biological Motion Predicts a Reduction in Symptom Severity 1 Year Later in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

[This corrects the article on p. 143 in vol. 7, PMID: 27605914.].

Brief Report: A Preference for Biological Motion Predicts a Reduction in Symptom Severity 1 Year Later in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Recent research has consistently demonstrated reduced orienting to social stimuli in samples of young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, social orienting greatly varies between individual children on the spectrum. Better understanding this heterogeneity in social orienting may contribute to our comprehension of the mechanisms underlying autistic symptoms thereby improving our ability to intervene. Indeed, children on the autism spectrum who show higher levels of interest in social stimuli demonstrate reduced clinical symptoms and increased adaptive functioning. However, longitudinal studies examining the influence of social orienting on subsequent outcome are critically lacking. Here, we aim to explore the relationship between social interest at the age of 3 and changes in severity of autistic symptoms over the subsequent year, in 20 children with ASD and 20 age-matched typically developing (TD) children. A visual preference for social stimuli was measured using an eye-tracking task at baseline, consisting of a previously studied visual preference paradigm presenting biological and geometric motion side-by-side. The task was altered for the current study by alternating presentation side for each type of stimuli to keep visual perseveration from influencing participants' first fixation location. Clinical data were collected both at baseline and 1 year later at follow-up. As a group, we observed reduced interest for biological motion (BIO-M) in children with ASD compared to TD children, corroborating previous findings. We also confirmed that a preference for BIO-M is associated with better adaptive functioning in preschoolers with ASD. Most importantly, our longitudinal results showed that a preference for BIO-M strongly predicted decreased severity of diagnostic symptoms. Participants who preferred social stimuli at the age of 3 showed drastic reductions in their severity level of autistic symptoms 1 year later, whereas participants who preferred geometric stimuli showed autistic symptoms that were unchanged or more severe after 1 year. As a whole, our results suggest that a preference for BIO-M may be key to understanding the behavioral phenotype of young children with ASD, and may represent a promising candidate behavior for predicting early developmental trajectories and outcome.

The integration of visual context information in facial emotion recognition in 5- to 15-year-olds

The current study investigated the role of congruent visual context information in the recognition of facial emotional expression in 190 participants from 5 to 15years of age. Children performed a matching task that presented pictures with different facial emotional expressions (anger, disgust, happiness, fear, and sadness) in two conditions: with and without a visual context. The results showed that emotions presented with visual context information were recognized more accurately than those presented in the absence of visual context. The context effect remained steady with age but varied according to the emotion presented and the gender of participants. The findings demonstrated for the first time that children from the age of 5years are able to integrate facial expression and visual context information, and this integration improves facial emotion recognition.

Successful neuropsychological rehabilitation in a patient with Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome

The objective of this case study was to describe the neuropsychological rehabilitation of a 16-year-old patient who presented a Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome (CCAS) following a bilateral cerebellar hemorrhage. The patient presented severe and diffuse cognitive deficits, massive behavioral disorders, and emotion regulation difficulties. The cognitive rehabilitation was performed in the chronic phase (one year after the onset of the hemorrhage) using a transdisciplinary neurobehavioral approach based on the patient's favorite interest (soccer). A significant behavioral and cognitive improvement was observed. The patient became progressively independent in all activities of daily living and was discharged home. The Functional Independence Measure at discharge was 124/126 (vs. 37/126 at entry). The patient was able to complete his schooling despite the mild cognitive and behavioral sequelae. This first description of the use of neurobehavioral therapy in a case of chronic CCAS suggests that (a) major clinical improvement can occur more than one year after the onset of the CCAS, showing the importance of long-term and intensive neurorehabilitation; and (b) when the cerebellum cannot properly play its regulator role in cognition, neuropsychological intervention through a behavioral and cognitive approach can be of great help by acting as an external modulator to help the patient regain control over himself.

Sound Interferes with the Early Tactile Manual Abilities of Preterm Infants

Premature birth is a sudden change of the sensory environment of a newborn, while their senses are still in development, especially in the stressful and noisy environment of the NICU. The study aimed to evaluate the effect of noise on the early tactile manual abilities of preterm infants (between 29 and 35 weeks PCA). Infants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: Silence and Noise. For each condition, two phases were introduced: a habituation phase (repeated presentation of the same object, prism or cylinder), followed by a test phase (presentation of the familiar or a novel object). In the Silence condition, they received the tactile habituation and test phases: In the Noise condition, they went through the same phases, while an alarm sounded. Sixty-three preterm infants were included. They displayed a strong and effective ability to memorize tactile manual information and to detect the difference between two shape features, but this ability seems to be impaired by the concomitant exposure to an alarm sound. This study is the first to highlight the effect of a negative stimulus on sensory functioning in premature infants. It reinforces the importance of developing environmental measures to lower the sound level in NICUs.

Children’s Approximate Number System in Haptic Modality

The approximate number system (ANS) is a primitive system used to estimate quantities. It can process quantities in visual and auditory modalities. The aim of the present study was to examine whether ANS can process quantities presented haptically. Moreover, to assess age-related changes, two groups of children (5- and 7-year-olds) were compared. In a newly designed haptic task, children compared two arrays of dots by touching them simultaneously using both hands, without seeing them, and for limited duration to prevent counting. Using Panamath, a frequently used visual ANS task, we verified that our population exhibited the typical pattern of approximation with visual arrays: Older children outperformed younger children, and an increased ratio between the two quantities to be compared led to more accurate responses. Performance in the haptic task revealed that children, in both age-groups, were able to haptically compare two quantities above chance level, with improved performance in older compared with younger children. Moreover, our results revealed a ratio effect, a well-known signature of the ANS. These findings suggest that haptic numerical discrimination in children is dictated by the ANS, and that ANS acuity measured with a haptic task improves with age, as commonly observed with the visual task.

Differences in the predictors of reading comprehension in first graders from low socio-economic status families with either good or poor decoding skills

Based on the assumption that good decoding skills constitute a bootstrapping mechanism for reading comprehension, the present study investigated the relative contribution of the former skill to the latter compared to that of three other predictors of reading comprehension (listening comprehension, vocabulary and phonemic awareness) in 392 French-speaking first graders from low SES families. This large sample was split into three groups according to their level of decoding skills assessed by pseudoword reading. Using a cutoff of 1 SD above or below the mean of the entire population, there were 63 good decoders, 267 average decoders and 62 poor decoders. 58% of the variance in reading comprehension was explained by our four predictors, with decoding skills proving to be the best predictor (12.1%, 7.3% for listening comprehension, 4.6% for vocabulary and 3.3% for phonemic awareness). Interaction between group versus decoding skills, listening comprehension and phonemic awareness accounted for significant additional variance (3.6%, 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively). The effects on reading comprehension of decoding skills and phonemic awareness were higher in poor and average decoders than in good decoders whereas listening comprehension accounted for more variance in good and average decoders than in poor decoders. Furthermore, the percentage of children with impaired reading comprehension skills was higher in the group of poor decoders (55%) than in the two other groups (average decoders: 7%; good decoders: 0%) and only 6 children (1.5%) had impaired reading comprehension skills with unimpaired decoding skills, listening comprehension or vocabulary. These results challenge the outcomes of studies on "poor comprehenders" by showing that, at least in first grade, poor reading comprehension is strongly linked to the level of decoding skills.

Tactile picture recognition by early blind children: the effect of illustration technique

This study investigated factors that influenced haptic recognition of tactile pictures by early blind children. Such a research is motivated by the difficulty to identify tactile pictures, that is, two-dimensional representations of objects, while it is the most common way to depict the surrounding world to blind people. Thus, it is of great interest to better understand whether an appropriate representative technique can make objects' identification more effective and to what extent a technique is uniformly suitable for all blind individuals. Our objective was to examine the effects of three techniques used to illustrate pictures (raised lines, thermoforming, and textures), and to find out if their effect depended on participants' level of use of tactile pictures. Twenty-three early blind children (half with a regular or moderate level of use of tactile pictures, and half with either no use or infrequent use) were asked to identify 24 pictures of eight objects designed as the pictures currently used in the tactile books and illustrated using these three techniques. Results showed better recognition of textured pictures than of thermoformed and raised line pictures. Participants with regular or moderate use performed better than participants with no or infrequent use. Finally, the effect of illustration technique on picture recognition did not depend on prior use of tactile pictures. To conclude, early and frequent use of tactile material develops haptic proficiency and textures have a facilitating effect on picture recognition whatever the user level. Practical implications for the design of tactile pictures are discussed in the conclusion.

Brain processing of emotional scenes in aging: effect of arousal and affective context

Research on emotion showed an increase, with age, in prevalence of positive information relative to negative ones. This effect is called positivity effect. From the cerebral analysis of the Late Positive Potential (LPP), sensitive to attention, our study investigated to which extent the arousal level of negative scenes is differently processed between young and older adults and, to which extent the arousal level of negative scenes, depending on its value, may contextually modulate the cerebral processing of positive (and neutral) scenes and favor the observation of a positivity effect with age. With this aim, two negative scene groups characterized by two distinct arousal levels (high and low) were displayed into two separate experimental blocks in which were included positive and neutral pictures. The two blocks only differed by their negative pictures across participants, as to create two negative global contexts for the processing of the positive and neutral pictures. The results show that the relative processing of different arousal levels of negative stimuli, reflected by LPP, appears similar between the two age groups. However, a lower activity for negative stimuli is observed with the older group for both tested arousal levels. The processing of positive information seems to be preserved with age and is also not contextually impacted by negative stimuli in both younger and older adults. For neutral stimuli, a significantly reduced activity is observed for older adults in the contextual block of low-arousal negative stimuli. Globally, our study reveals that the positivity effect is mainly due to a modulation, with age, in processing of negative stimuli, regardless of their arousal level. It also suggests that processing of neutral stimuli may be modulated with age, depending on negative context in which they are presented to. These age-related effects could contribute to justify the differences in emotional preference with age.

The effect of postnatal age on the early tactile manual abilities of preterm infants

BACKGROUND

Although preterm infants possess early tactile manual abilities, the influence of the postnatal experience has not yet been systematically examined.

AIMS

To investigate whether early tactile manual habituation, discrimination and recognition (following interference) of shape in preterm infants are modified by postnatal age.

STUDY DESIGN

Prospective study.

SUBJECTS

Forty preterm infants were assessed from the post-conceptional age (PCA) of 34 weeks. Two groups were made up according to postnatal age (PNA): low PNA (PNA≤10 days of life) and high PNA (PNA≥12 days of life).

OUTCOME MEASURES

An object (prism or cylinder) was presented repeatedly in the left hand, and holding times of the object were recorded during each trial.

RESULTS

Holding time was shorter for all preterm infants following successive presentation of the same object irrespective of postnatal age range. In the discrimination phase, the mean holding time for the novel object was longer than holding times in the last two habituation trials, in both PNA groups. Finally, the mean holding time of the familiar object presented in the recognition phase was shorter than the holding time of the novel object presented previously, but only in the low PNA group.

CONCLUSIONS

Tactile manual habituation and discrimination of shape information is present in preterm infants at a post-conceptional age of 34 weeks, independently of postnatal age. However, tactile manual recognition of familiar shapes following interference is affected by length of postnatal experience. The significance of this last result is discussed in detail.

Analysis of cursive letters, syllables, and words handwriting in a French second-grade child with Developmental Coordination Disorder and comparison with typically developing children

Poor handwriting is a core deficit in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). In a previous study, we compared the evolution of cursive letters handwriting in a girl with DCD throughout her second-grade year with that of typically developing (TD) children. We found that her handwriting evolved much less than that of TD children and remained similar to that of pre-schoolers at all stages, suggesting that her handwriting skills have reached a steady state level. We present here a continuation of this work, in which we focused on the velocity aspects of handwriting in another French child with DCD. Indeed, different velocity patterns have been observed in Chinese and English children with DCD. In the French cursive style of writing, consecutive letters are joined, a major difference with the English script style of writing. We thus analyzed the handwriting of a second-grade French girl with DCD, not only for isolated letters but also for syllables and words, in comparison to that of TD first-graders (6-7 years old; N = 85) and second-graders (7-8 years old; N = 88). Each written track was digitized, and nine kinematic parameters were measured to evaluate writing fluency. Results showed that the productions of the child with DCD were more similar to those of first-graders than to those of second-graders. In line with our previous study, the most discriminative parameters between the child with DCD and TD children were size and mean speed. Moreover, her handwriting was less fluent than that of TD children. In contrast to previous observations, we observed a higher writing velocity of the child with DCD when compared to TD children, whatever the complexity of the item, and no significant difference with TD children in the pausing time during writing. These differences may reflect linguistic specificities. For syllables and words, each letter was treated separately as a single unit, thus reflecting a problem in anticipation and automation.

Reading comprehension in a large cohort of French first graders from low socio-economic status families: a 7-month longitudinal study

Background

The literature suggests that a complex relationship exists between the three main skills involved in reading comprehension (decoding, listening comprehension and vocabulary) and that this relationship depends on at least three other factors orthographic transparency, children’s grade level and socioeconomic status (SES). This study investigated the relative contribution of the predictors of reading comprehension in a longitudinal design (from beginning to end of the first grade) in 394 French children from low SES families.

Methodology/Principal findings

Reading comprehension was measured at the end of the first grade using two tasks one with short utterances and one with a medium length narrative text. Accuracy in listening comprehension and vocabulary, and fluency of decoding skills, were measured at the beginning and end of the first grade. Accuracy in decoding skills was measured only at the beginning. Regression analyses showed that listening comprehension and decoding skills (accuracy and fluency) always significantly predicted reading comprehension. The contribution of decoding was greater when reading comprehension was assessed via the task using short utterances. Between the two assessments, the contribution of vocabulary, and of decoding skills especially, increased, while that of listening comprehension remained unchanged.

Conclusion/Significance

These results challenge the ‘simple view of reading’. They also have educational implications, since they show that it is possible to assess decoding and reading comprehension very early on in an orthography (i.e., French), which is less deep than the English one even in low SES children. These assessments, associated with those of listening comprehension and vocabulary, may allow early identification of children at risk for reading difficulty, and to set up early remedial training, which is the most effective, for them.

Adults and 5-year-old children draw rectangles and triangles around a prototype but not in the golden ratio

This study uses a production task to probe the representations of two geometrical shape categories (rectangles and triangles) in adults and children before the onset of geometry instruction. We specifically assessed whether drawings of these shapes would average around a prototype and whether the prototypical side-length ratio of the shapes would be situated in the range of the 'golden ratio', as it has been reported in the perception domain. We asked 78 adults and 68 five-year-old children to draw one rectangle and one triangle. In both populations, the prototypical rectangle was horizontally oriented with a ratio between sides superior to the 'golden' value of 1.62. For the triangle, both children and adults tended to produce horizontal acute isosceles triangles with a ratio inferior to the golden value. These findings suggest that adults' and children's shape categories of triangles and rectangles are organized around a prototypical shape, but the characteristics of this prototype may differ to a certain extent with the ones observed in previous perceptual tasks. Implications of this perception/production dissociation for length concept development, as well as the potential origins of these prototypes are discussed.

The perception and representation of orientations: a study in the haptic modality

This research examines the haptic perception of orientations in the frontal plane in order to identify the nature of their representation. Blindfolded participants inserted the tip of the index finger into a thimble mounted on the extremity of a haptic interface and manually explored the orientation of a "virtual rod". After a short delay, participants had to reproduce the scanned orientation with the same hand without the guidance of the virtual rod. The analysis of the systematic errors showed that the recalled orientations were markedly biased toward the nearest diagonal in each quadrant with the exception of the orientations nearest to the vertical, which were biased toward the vertical. The variable error was greater for the oblique orientations than for the horizontal or vertical orientation. These results are interpreted with the Category-Adjustment model, which posits that orientations are categorically represented. We show that it is necessary to assume the existence of vertical and horizontal categories in addition to the previously postulated oblique categories to predict the error patterns observed in the present and former studies. The similarity of the error patterns in the visual and haptic modalities suggests that a common mechanism is at play in perceiving and reproducing orientations in both sensory modalities.

Tactile sensory capacity of the preterm infant: manual perception of shape from 28 gestational weeks

OBJECTIVE

Recent studies have shown that from the postconceptional age of 33 weeks, preterm infants are able to memorize tactile information about the shape of an object by using their hands, and can detect differences with another shape. This study aimed to investigate tactile abilities earlier on in development, in very preterm and mildly preterm human infants.

METHODS

Infants were assigned to 2 groups according to postconceptional age: very preterm (before 32 weeks) and mildly preterm (from 32 to 33+6 weeks). The test consisted of the repeated presentation of an object (prism or cylinder) in the left hand. The experiment was conducted in 3 phases: habituation (repeated presentation of the same object), discrimination (presentation of a novel object), followed by recognition (presentation of the familiar object).

RESULTS

Forty-eight newborns were recruited (24 very preterm; 24 mildly preterm). During habituation, each infant showed a decrease in the holding time of the object. Then, when a novel shape was put into the preterm newborn's hand, holding time increased. Finally, when the familiar shape was presented again, the holding time decreased. Preterm infants can memorize by touch specific features that differentiate prism and cylinder shapes, discriminate between them, and recognize them after interference.

CONCLUSIONS

From 28 weeks, and from the first days of life, the preterm newborn is endowed with tactile sensory capacities. The tactile stimulations that are presented to preterm infants during their hospitalization should be adapted while respecting their sleep-wake rhythms.

The haptic recognition of geometrical shapes in congenitally blind and blindfolded adolescents: is there a haptic prototype effect?

BACKGROUND

It has been shown that visual geometrical shape categories (rectangle and triangle) are graded structures organized around a prototype as demonstrated by perception and production tasks in adults as well as in children. The visual prototypical shapes are better recognized than other exemplars of the categories. Their existence could emerge from early exposure to these prototypical shapes that are present in our visual environment. The present study examined the role of visual experience in the existence of prototypical shapes by comparing the haptic recognition of geometrical shapes in congenitally blind and blindfolded adolescents.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

To determine whether the existence of a prototype effect (higher recognition of prototypical shapes than non prototypical shapes) depended on visual experience, congenitally blind and blindfolded sighted adolescents were asked to recognize in the haptic modality three categories of correct shapes (square, rectangle, triangle) varying in orientation (prototypical/canonical orientation vs. non prototypical/canonical orientation rotated by 45°) among a set of other shapes. A haptic prototype effect was found in the blindfolded sighted whereas no difference between prototypical and non prototypical correct shapes was observed in the congenitally blind. A control experiment using a similar visual recognition task confirmed the existence of a visual prototype effect in a group of sighted adolescents.

CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE

These findings show that the prototype effect is not intrinsic to the haptic modality but depends on visual experience. This suggests that the occurrence of visual and haptic prototypical shapes in the recognition of geometrical shape seems to depend on visual exposure to these prototypical shapes existing in our environment.