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.

What predicts mathematics achievement? Developmental change in 5- and 7-year-old children.

Many changes occur in general and specific cognitive abilities in children between 5 and 7 years of age, the period coinciding with entrance into formal schooling. The current study focused on the relative contributions of approximate number system (ANS) acuity, mapping precision between numeral symbols and their corresponding magnitude (mapping precision) and working memory (WM) capacity to mathematics achievement in 5- and 7-year-olds. Children's performance was examined in different tasks: nonsymbolic number comparison, number line estimation, working memory, mathematics achievement, and vocabulary. This latter task was used to determine whether predictors were general or specific to mathematics achievement. The results showed that ANS acuity was a significant specific predictor of mathematics achievement only in 5-year-olds, mapping precision was a significant specific predictor at the two ages, and WM was a significant general predictor only in 7-year-olds. These findings suggest that a general cognitive ability, especially WM, becomes a stronger predictor of mathematics achievement after entrance into formal schooling, whereas ANS acuity, a specific cognitive ability, loses predictive power. Moreover, mediation analyses showed that mapping precision was a partial mediator of the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement in 5-year-olds but not in 7-year-olds. Conversely, in 7-year-olds but not in 5-year-olds, WM fully mediated the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement. These results showed that between 5 and 7 years of age, the period of transition into formal mathematical learning, important changes occurred in the relative weights of different predictors of mathematics achievement.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Recognition of facial expressions of emotions in tactile drawings by blind children, children with low vision and sighted children.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gender and line size factors modulate the deviations of the subjective visual vertical induced by head tilt.

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.

Development of children's ability to detect kinship through facial resemblance.

Facial features appear to be a prominent kinship cue for ascribing relatedness among human individuals. Although there is evidence that adults can detect kinship in unrelated and unfamiliar individual's faces, it remains to be seen whether people already possess the ability when they are young. To further understand the development of this skill, we explored children's ability to detect parent-offspring resemblance in unrelated and unfamiliar faces. To this end, we tested approximately 140 children, aged 5-11, in two photo-matching tasks. We used a procedure that asked them to match one neonate's face to one of three adults' faces (Task 1), or to match one adult's face to one of three neonate's faces (Task 2). Our findings reveal asymmetrical performance, depending on the tasks assigned (performance of Task 2 is stronger than for Task 1), and on the sex of individuals who made up the parent-offspring pair (male parents are better matched with neonates than female parents, and boys are better matched than girls). The picture that emerges from our study is, on one hand, that the ability to detect kinship is already present at the age of five but continues to improve as one gets older, and on the other, that perception of parent-offspring facial resemblance varies according to the appraisers' characteristics.

Intermanual transfer of shapes in preterm human infants from 33 to 34 + 6 weeks postconceptional age.

This study investigated the ability of preterm infants to learn an object shape with one hand and discriminate a new shape in the opposite hand (without visual control). Twenty-four preterm infants between 33 and 34 + 6 gestational weeks received a tactile habituation task with either their right or left hand followed by a tactile discrimination task in the opposite hand. The results confirmed that habituation occurred for both shapes and both hands. Infants subsequently held the novel shape longer in the opposite hand. The results reveal that preterm infants are capable of intermanual transfer of shape information. In spite of the immaturity of the corpus callosum in preterm infants, its development seems to be sufficient to allow some transfer of information between both hands.

The Behavioral Effects of Montessori Pedagogy on Children's Psychological Development and School Learning.

This review examines the quantitative behavioural studies that have evaluated the effects of Montessori pedagogy on children's psychological development and school learning. The analyses of only three "Randomized Controlled Trials-RCT" studies published to date reveal varied and contradictory effects. Firstly, these findings are discussed in the light of several methodological limitations: the absence of active control groups, small sample sizes, diversity of measures, or lack of control over the implementation fidelity of both Montessori and conventional pedagogy. Secondly, these findings are discussed in the light of what Montessori pedagogy does not emphasise in its conception of development and the role of the teacher, namely the place given to language and pretend play.

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.

Experiences and Attitudes on Early Identification Practices of Autism: A Preliminary Survey of Pediatric Professionals in Ecuador.

Early identification of children with autism is necessary to support their social and communicative skills and cognitive, verbal, and adaptive development. Researchers have identified several barriers to early diagnosis. Data collected in low- and middle-income contexts-where the vast majority of children in the world live-is scarce. In Ecuador, as in many other countries, estimates are lower compared to the global prevalence. Health authorities estimate a prevalence of 0.28% (0.18%-0.41%) in children aged five years old or less. Based on the hypothesis that, as in many parts of the world, children in Ecuador are not routinely screened and that this situation may result from poor recognition of this condition, our objective was to identify potential obstacles to case identification in pediatric settings. Several barriers, consistent with those identified in other countries, were reported by 153 participants on a survey, including lack of time, lack of resources to refer, fear of unnecessarily alarming families, and lack of information to guide families with concerns. The vast majority of participants are aware of the need for a screening tool for autism detection but report a lack of knowledge of its formal application. Most of the barriers reported in this study could be overcome by educational programs tailored to professional needs in order to support the well-being of children with autism and their families.

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.

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.