Tactile sensory processing as a precursor of executive attention: Toward early detection of attention impairments and neurodevelopmental disorders

Abstract

Recent studies in developmental neuroscience tend to show the existence of neural attention networks from birth. Their construction is based on the first sensory experiences that allow us to learn the patterns of the world surrounding us and preserve our limited attentional resources.Touch is the first sensory modality to develop, although it is still little studied in developmental psychology in contrast to distal modalities such as audition or vision. Atypical tactile sensory processing at an early age could predict later attention dysfunction, both of them being part of the symptomatology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). We review the state of knowledge on tactile sensory processing and its links with attention, executive attention in particular, and propose that abnormal tactile sensory processing at an early age could provide markers of executive attention dysfunctions, contributing to the early detection of NDD.