BackgroundPrevious research links social difficulties to atypical face exploration in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). Two types of face processing are distinguished: configural (CFP) and featural (FFP). CFP develops later in life and plays an important role in face and emotion recognition abilities. Recent studies reported atypical development of CFP in several neurodevelopmental disorders. Taking previous reports of atypical face exploration one step further, our study aims at characterizing face processing in children and adolescents with 22q11.2DS. First, we sought to identify biases in the first two fixation positions on faces and to detect differences between CFP and FFP in 22q11.2DS using eye-tracking technology. Second, we investigated the developmental trajectories of CFP and FFP using accuracy data from follow-up evaluation.MethodsSeventy-five individuals with 22q11.2DS and 84 typically developed (TD) individuals (aged 6–21 years) completed a discrimination task (“Jane task”) inducing CFP and FFP in an eye-tracking setting. Thirty-six individuals with 22q11DS and 30 TD from our sample completed a longitudinal follow-up evaluation.ResultsFindings revealed that individuals with 22q11.2DS demonstrate an early bias toward the mouth region during the initial fixations on the faces and reduced flexibility exploration of the faces, with a reduced number of transitions between faces and longer fixations compared to the TD group. Further, scanpaths did not differ between CFP and FFP in the 22q11.2DS group. Longitudinal analysis of accuracy data provided evidence for atypical development of CFP in 22q11.2DS.ConclusionsThe current study brings new evidence of altered face exploration in 22q11.2DS and identifies developmental mechanisms that may contribute to difficulties impacting social interactions in the syndrome.

Objective: Emotional competences (EC) are important for social and academic outcomes and positive life trajectories. Due to their social setting and tendency to stimulate intrinsic motivation, board games may constitute efficient learning tools for promoting socioemotional development in children. The current project therefore aimed at developing and testing three theory-driven board games explicitly targeting EC. First, we explored the quality of these EC games in terms of game experience, compared to off-the-shelf games (without an EC focus). Second, we tested whether targeted EC were linked to game experience in the EC games by measuring associations between children's trait EC and subjective effort and difficulty during gameplay. Materials and Methods: Children (N = 177) aged 8-12 years old were randomly assigned to a four-session protocol that comprised EC board games (experimental group) or off-the-shelf board games (control group). At baseline, participants' trait EC (emotion recognition, differentiation, and cognitive reappraisal) were assessed, while game experience (e.g., positive and negative affect, flow and immersion, difficulty, and effort) was assessed after each game. Results: Both groups perceived the games they played as positive and playable. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that higher trait EC was linked to lower self-reported effort and difficulty in two of the EC board games focusing on emotion recognition and differentiation. Conclusion:The present study shows that the board games on EC designed for children seem to elicit game experiences comparable to off-the-shelf games. Moreover, children's trait EC were linked to subjective game experience in two of the three games. Future interventions should examine the potential of the novel games to promote EC.

This study is the first to investigate visual attention in 22q11.2DS during a memory task. The results delineate impaired processes during encoding that affect visual memory performance. The findings may be especially useful for informing interventions intended to boost visual learning in patients with 22q11.2DS.