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This study assessed the effects of multi-sensory training on the understanding of the alphabetic principle in kindergarten children from low socio-economic status families. Two interventions were compared, called HVAM (visual and haptic exploration of letters) and VAM (visual exploration of letters). The interventions were conducted by either researchers or teachers. Results showed that performance in the letter recognition task and in the initial phoneme identification task were higher after HVAM training than after VAM training in kindergarten. Moreover, pseudo-word decoding scores improved more after HVAM training than after VAM training in first grade. This delayed effect on decoding was explained by the children's poor performance on some language skills necessary for reading acquisition. Visuo-haptic exploration enables the children first to increase performance on letter knowledge and initial phoneme awareness and then allowed better decoding skills. No differences were found between the interventions conducted by researchers and those conducted by teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The subjective visual vertical (SVV, the visual estimation of gravitational direction) is commonly considered as an indicator of the sense of orientation. The present study examined the impact of two methodological factors (the angle size of the stimulus and the participant's gender) on deviations of the SVV caused by head tilt. Forty healthy participants (20 men and 20 women) were asked to make visual vertical adjustments of a light bar with their head held vertically or roll-tilted by 30° to the left or to the right. Line angle sizes of 0.95° and 18.92° were presented. Results The SVV tended to move in the direction of head tilt in women but away from the direction of head tilt in men. Moreover, the head-tilt effect was also modulated by the stimulus' angle size. The large angle size led to deviations in the direction of head-tilt, whereas the small angle size had the opposite effect. Conclusions Our results showed that gender and line angle size have an impact on the evaluation of the SVV. These findings must be taken into account in the growing body of research that uses the SVV paradigm in disease settings. Moreover, this methodological issue may explain (at least in part) the discrepancies found in the literature on the head-tilt effect.

Lay Abstract: There has been much research about the experiences of families of autistic children as they navigate the process of accessing a diagnosis and associated support. However, most of this work has been conducted in Europe, the United States, and Australia. In this study, we examined the experiences of 767 families in Ecuador via an in-depth survey. Of the families we surveyed, 651 had children whose journeys resulted in them receiving a formal autism diagnosis. Most families realized that their children might have developmental differences when they were between the ages of 6 and 48 months, after which they tended to seek support from a professional fairly quickly (i.e. within 6 months). Most families consulted with several different professionals before they accessed a diagnosis for their children, with children tending to receive a diagnosis before the age of 48 months. Families often reported negative emotions around their children's diagnostic and post-diagnostic journeys, which were commonly related to the lack of information and services available to them. We hope that through gaining a greater understanding of the experiences of families of autistic children in Ecuador, these findings can be used to inform public policies that lead to the development of supports and services that better meet the needs of autistic people and their families in this context., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Background: The experimental evaluation of young children's socio-emotional abilities is limited by the lack of existing specific measures to assess this population and by the relative difficulty for researchers to adapt measures designed for the general population., Methods: This study examined six early social-emotional abilities in 86 typically developing children aged 1 to 3 years using an eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm that combined visual preference tasks adapted from pre-existing infant studies., Objectives: The aim of this study is to obtain developmental norms in six early social-emotional abilities in typical children aged 1 to 3 years that would be promising for an understanding of disorders of mental development. These developmental standards are essential to enable comparative assessments with children with atypical development, such as children with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD)., Results: The participants had greater spontaneous visual preferences for biological (vs. non-biological) motion, socially salient (vs. non-social) stimuli, the eye (vs. mouth) area of emotional expressions, angry (vs. happy) faces, and objects of joint attention (vs. non-looked-at ones). Interestingly, although the prosocial (vs. antisocial) scene of the socio-moral task was preferred, both the helper and hinderer characters were equally gazed at. Finally, correlational analyses revealed that performance was neither related to participants' age nor to each other (dismissing the hypothesis of a common underpinning process)., Conclusion: Our revised experimental paradigm is possible in infants aged 1 to 3 years and thus provides additional scientific proof on the direct assessment of these six socio-emotional abilities in this population.

Background/objectives: With the rising ubiquity of digital media and screens in everyday life, toddlers are increasingly exposed to different screens from an early age (i.e., television, computer, tablet, phone). However, few studies have examined the effect of these screens on toddlers' perceptual development. Since tactile exploration skills are necessary for environmental discovery and overall development, the current research investigates the links between screen-use habits and the tactile exploration skills (with visual control) of 6- to 36-month-old toddlers., Methods: The study involved observing the interactions of 135 toddlers with various objects and assessing the complexity of their visuo-tactile exploration strategies through two original experimental tasks. Data concerning screen habits and other relevant factors, such as socio-economic level, were collected using a parental questionnaire., Results: Toddlers with greater screen exposure time demonstrated weaker tactile exploration skills and employed less age-appropriate exploration strategies. Socio-economic factors and parental engagement in alternative activities significantly influenced these developmental outcomes., Conclusions: These findings emphasize the importance of reducing screen time and promoting interactive co-viewing and alternative activities to mitigate the negative effects of screen exposure. Further longitudinal research is needed to determine the long-term impacts of early screen exposure on tactile exploration and overall psychological development.

Background/objectives: Premature birth can lead to socio-emotional, behavioural and executive problems that impact quality of life and school performance in the long term. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a 12-week computerised training called Vis-à-vis to enhance these competencies in a cohort of very preterm (VPT) children aged 6 to 9., Methods: This pilot randomised controlled trial included 45 children born before 32 gestational weeks. Socio-emotional, behavioural and executive competencies were evaluated at three time points using computerised tasks, neuropsychological tests and questionnaires., Results: Among the eligible VPT children, 20% (n = 45) accepted to be part of the study, and 40% (n = 18) dropped out. Finally, 60% (n = 27) of the enrolled participants completed the study. Results showed a significant improvement in emotion knowledge and recognition immediately after the completion of the training., Conclusions: Overall, our results indicate that the implementation of this type of computerised training is feasible, but the overall compliance is unsatisfactory given the high dropout rate. Nevertheless, the positive effect of the training on emotion recognition encourages further exploration of these kinds of interventions to prevent adverse consequences in children born too soon.

In the context of blindness, studies on the recognition of facial expressions of emotions by touch are essential to define the compensatory touch abilities and to create adapted tools on emotions. This study is the first to examine the effect of visual experience in the recognition of tactile drawings of facial expressions of emotions by children with different visual experiences. To this end, we compared the recognition rates of tactile drawings of emotions between blind children, children with low vision and sighted children aged 6-12 years. Results revealed no effect of visual experience on recognition rates. However, an effect of emotions and an interaction effect between emotions and visual experience were found. Indeed, while all children had a low average recognition rate, the drawings of fear, anger and disgust were particularly poorly recognized. Moreover, sighted children were significantly better at recognizing the drawings of surprise and sadness than the blind children who only showed high recognition rates for joy. The results of this study support the importance of developing emotion tools that can be understood by children with different visual experiences., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence their work., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

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.

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., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Liverani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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.

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.