Eye‐tracking for longitudinal assessment of social cognition in children born preterm

Abstract

Background and objectives: Preterm birth is associated with atypical social cognition in infancy, and cognitive impairment and social difficulties in childhood. Little is known about the stability of social cognition through childhood, and its relationship with neurodevelopment. We used eye-tracking in preterm and term-born infants to investigate social attentional preference in infancy and at 5 years, its relationship with neurodevelopment and the influence of socioeconomic deprivation. Methods: A cohort of 81 preterm and 66 term infants with mean (range) gestational age at birth 28 +5 (23 +2-33 +0) and 40 +0 (37 +0-42 +1) respectively, completed eye-tracking at 7-9 months, with a subset reassessed at 5 years. Three free-viewing social tasks of increasing stimulus complexity were presented, and a social preference score was derived from looking time to socially informative areas. Socioeconomic data and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning at 5 years were collected. Results: Preterm children had lower social preference scores at 7-9 months compared with term-born controls. Term-born children's scores were stable between time points, whereas preterm children showed a significant increase, reaching equivalent scores by 5 years. Low gestational age and socioeconomic deprivation were associated with reduced social preference scores at 7-9 months. At 5 years, preterm infants had lower Early Learning Composite scores than controls, but this was not associated with social attentional preference in infancy or at 5 years. Conclusions: Preterm children have reduced social attentional preference at 7-9 months compared with term-born controls, but catch up by 5 years. Infant social cognition is influenced by socioeconomic deprivation and gestational age. Social cognition and neurodevelopment have different trajectories following preterm birth.

Social gaze in preterm infants may act as an early indicator of atypical lateralization

“…These differences are indicative of atypicalities in the development of visual field biases, shown by a reduced preference for viewing social stimuli in the LVF. This finding was broadly consistent across two previously validated free-viewing social tasks, and across three different measures of viewing preferences (Dean et al, 2020;Telford et al, 2016). Across looking time and proportional looking time scores, we reported a main effect of object and a twoway interaction between side and clinical group in both tasks, and a three-way interaction between side, object and group in the face pop-out task.…”

“…These differences are indicative of atypicalities in the development of visual field biases, shown by a reduced preference for viewing social stimuli in the LVF. This finding was broadly consistent across two previously validated free‐viewing social tasks, and across three different measures of viewing preferences (Dean et al, 2020; Telford et al, 2016).…”

“…AOIs were predefined according to previous protocols. Raw eye movement data were filtered into fixations using Tobii I‐VT classification algorithm (Dean et al, 2020).…”

What influences the implementation of kangaroo mother care? An umbrella review

“…According to statistics, complications of preterm birth directly account for more than 35% of all neonatal deaths, while the proportion of deaths indirectly caused by preterm birth is even higher because preterm birth increases the risk of infant death from infection [ 3 ]. Many surviving preterm infants encounter plenty of problems due to premature birth, such as sensory impairment and cognitive and language impairment [ 4 – 6 ]. In addition, the birth of preterm infants may cause a substantial emotional crisis and economic cost to the family, as well as have an impact on public sector services such as education and other social support systems [ 7 , 8 ].…”

Early life attachment in term and preterm infants

“…Preterm birth (birth before 37 weeks of gestation) is associated with atypical neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood, including attention problems, impaired language development and delayed socioemotional competence (Ene et al, 2019, Dean et al, 2021a, Dean et al, 2021b, Barre et al, 2011). Secure infant attachment can protect against some of these adverse outcomes (Thompson, 2008); however, it could be adversely modified by unavoidable alteration in the caregiving environment inherent to neonatal intensive care required by preterm infants.…”