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

Duration: 7 mins DOI: 10.13056/acamh.13165

Description

In this Video Abstract, Dr. Bethan Dean discusses her JCPP paper ‘Eye‐tracking for longitudinal assessment of social cognition in children born preterm’. 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.

Learning Objectives

1. Investigate social cognition, operationalised as social attentional preference to visual stimuli, through using eye-tracking.
2. Examine if preterm infants have reduced social attention preference in infancy, and at 5 years, relative to term-born infants.
3. Explore the impact of gestational age, socioeconomic deprivation and male sex on social attentional preference.

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Dr. Bethan Dean

Bethan Dean is a paediatric registrar training to become a neonatologist. She was awarded a bachelors degree in natural sciences, specialising in experimental psychology, from Cambridge University prior to obtaining her medical degree from Oxford University. During her paediatric training, Bethan undertook a clinical research fellowship in the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh. She worked within the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort, a longitudinal cohort study of preterm and term-born children. Her research was focussed on the social cognitive skills of children born preterm in the preschool years and she has just submitted her PhD. She has now returned to clinical medicine to complete her sub-speciality training in neonatal medicine.

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