Socio-communicative sensitivity in prematurely born pre-schoolers: A multimodal approach integrating frequency-tagging EEG and real-life dyadic eye gaze and mimicry measures

Prematurely born children have a known risk for atypical socio-emotional and cognitive development, which can result in socio-emotional difficulties and learning disorders. Within the context of a large-scale prospective study, the long-term impact of pre-and perinatal stress in 170 preterm infants and their parents will be investigated. A unique longitudinal database of medical, physiological, psychological, and endocrinological parameters of general maturation, stress and attachment has been assembled, from (before) birth onwards. Soon, this well-documented cohort will enter primary school, which is a crucial transition period. At the age of five, the socio-affective and cognitive development of this cohort will be studied using innovative methods such as frequency-tagging EEG, eye-tracking, facial dynamics, stress physiology, behaviour, etc. In this PhD project, we will investigate how individual parent and child characteristics determine the quality of dual biobehavioural synchrony, and how these jointly impact on typical and atypical socio-emotional and cognitive development. The investigated characteristics include socio-communicative sensitivity as well as physiological and emotional state, which we hypothesize to have an influence on the quality of dual biobehavioural synchrony. Integration of these new longitudinal data with the early-life data will allow us to model developmental trajectories and to identify risk and protective factors for this vulnerable population.