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8 Effects of Birthweight and Home Environment on Cognitive Executive Functions at Preschool-Age of VLBW / ELBW Preterm Children with Normal Early Development
- Peng-Chen Chen, Nai-Wen Guo, Yuen-Ki Mo, Wen-Han Chou, Ching-Lun Tsai, June-Hui Huang, Wen-Hao Chang
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 618-619
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Objective:
Preterm children with very low birthweight (VLBW) / extremely low birthweight (ELBW) with normal early development had been found poorer executive functions (EFs) at preschool-age (Ni, Huang & Guo, 2011). The previous study found that the risks of deficits in EFs at preschool-age of preterm children can be attenuated by more supportive home environment (Taylor & Clark, 2016). However, former studies didn't investigate the effect of birthweight and home environment on cognitive EFs of preterm children simultaneously, especially those with normal early development. The present study aims to investigate the predictive effect of birthweight and home environment on the cognitive EFs of VLBW / ELBW preterm children.
Participants and Methods:The preterm children were recruited from the Premature Baby Foundation of Taiwan. Inclusion criteria were their scores of Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, second or third edition at 12 and 24 months, and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Revised Edition at 5 years old were higher than 70. Exclusion criteria were visual impairment, hearing impairment, and cerebral palsy. There was a total of 287 preterm children with age 6 recruited in the present study. Preterm children were then divided into VLBW group (n=202, birthweight between 1001-1500g) and ELBW group (n=85, birthweight less than 1000g). The typical children included 89 term-born healthy and typically developing children with age 6, who were recruited from comparable social status families in the community. Four types of cognitive EFs including 22 indicators were assessed. Inhibition ability including 8 indicators was assessed through Comprehensive Nonverbal Attention Test Battery (CNAT), cognitive flexibility including 6 indicators was assessed through Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), working memory including 2 indicators was assessed through Digit Span Subtest of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV) and Knox's Cube Test (KCT), planning ability including 6 indicators was assessed through Tower of London (ToL). The home environment was assessed through Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME), Revised edition. Data were analyzed with Stepwise Regression.
Results:Results showed that the regression model with birthweight significantly predicted 83.3% of planning ability indicators, 83.3% of cognitive flexibility indicators, and 50% of working memory indicators. Among indicators mentioned above, birthweight has been found the greatest predictive effect on summation-of score of ToL (R2=.04, p<.001). The regression model with HOME significantly predicted 66.7% of planning ability indicators, 16.7% of cognitive flexibility indicators, and 12.5% of inhibition ability indicators. Among the indicators mentioned above, HOME has been found the greatest predictive effect on rule-1 of ToL (R2=.027, p=.001). The regression model with birthweight and HOME significantly predicted 50% of planning ability indicators. Among indicators mentioned above, the regression model has been found the greatest predictive effect on summation-of-score of ToL (R2=.061, p<.001).
Conclusions:Both birthweight and home environment have been found significantly predicted different types of cognitive EFs at preschool-age of VLBW / ELBW preterm children with normal early development. Though the home environment doesn't have such a great predictive effect as birthweight is, both birthweight and home environment are significant predictors of planning ability.
45 The Influence of Wearing Face Mask on Facial Emotion Recognition in Preschoolers
- June-Hui Huang, Nai-Wen Guo
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 832-833
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Objective:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing face masks is an important strategy to prevent people from infection, allowing people to find a balance between maintaining social interaction and keeping social distancing. Since face mask might disrupt information processing of social cognition, it could lead to less functional connectivity of occipital face area, fusiform face area, and superior temporal sulcus which interrupted the development of medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) for mentalizing. However with better executive function (EF) people could process facial stimuli more efficiently. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of wearing face masks on preschoolers' facial emotion recognition, and the factors which might affect the development of facial emotion recognition.
Participants and Methods:In this study, preschoolers (N=44, 24 boys and 20 girls, aged 3 to 5 years-old) recruited from the community were asked to identify the emotions expressed in the 36 stimulus photos, each randomly presented with six emotion (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, and disgusted). The total face stimulus photos were 2 (face sex) × 6 emotions × 3 facial features (full face, presenting upper counterparts of face with face mask covering the mouth, and presenting lower counterparts of face with hat covering the eyes). The EF of preschoolers and their parent were also evaluated to examine whether EF could predict the correct score of facial emotion recognition.
Results:It was found that the correct score of emotion recognition increased with age. The recognition with full face feature were better than with upper feature and lower feature. When recognizing happy and disgust, participant tended to use lower features. When recognizing sad and angry, participant tended to use upper features. The EF of preschoolers could predict the correct score of emotion recognition. The EF of parents could predict the preschoolers' correct score of positive emotion recognition.
Conclusions:The ability of facial emotion recognition evolved rapidly in preschool age with the accumulation of social interaction experience and improved the development of auditory and visual subcortical cortex and the connectivity of MPFC. This study examined the emotion recognition ability of preschoolers and found that the face features preschoolers used to recognized emotion were consist with previous study. However, when the presenting stimulus were covered by face mask or hat, it was more difficult for preschoolers to recognizing emotion which would result in difficulty of understanding the social context and development of MPFC for mentalizing. In this study, it was found that preschooler's with better EF could be more efficiently recognizing facial emotion. Also, parents with better EF showed more positive emotion in daily life which lead to their children more sensitive to positive facial emotion.