Nathalie Goubet

How Infants Use Vision for Grasping Objects

The role of vision was examined as infants prepared to grasp horizontally and vertically oriented rods. Hand orientation was measured prior to contact to determine if infants differentially oriented their hands relative to the objects orientation. Infants reached for rods under different lighting conditions. Three experiments are reported in which (1) sight of the hand was removed (N = 12), (2) sight of the object was removed near the end of the reach (N = 40, including 10 adults), and (3) sight of the object was removed prior to reach onset (N = 9). Infants differentially oriented their hand to a similar extent regardless of lighting condition and similar to control conditions in which they could see the rod and hand throughout the reach. In preparation for reaching, infants may use the current sight of the objects orientation, or the memory of it, to orient the hand for grasping; sight of the hand had no effect on hand orientation.

Familiarity Breeds Content? Soothing Effect of a Familiar Odor on Full-term Newborns

Objective: This study tested the effects of familiar and unfamiliar odors during a heel stick in full-term newborns. Method: Forty-four newborns were exposed to vanillin (via their mother or via their crib) or no odor prior to a heel stick. On the day of the heel stick, infants were either exposed to a familiar odor, an unfamiliar odor, or no odor before, during, and after the procedure. Crying, grimacing, and oral movements were scored. Results: Infants exposed to a familiar odor displayed little distress and more oral movements during the procedure compared to the unfamiliar group. No advantage was found when infants were exposed to an odor learned via their mother compared to when the odor was learned via the crib. Exposure to an unfamiliar odor did not lessen distress compared to exposure to no odor. Conclusion: A familiar odor is effective in significantly reducing crying and grimacing during a minor painful procedure. Olfactory support is a useful intervention that may potentially help minimize deleterious effects of neonatal pain.

To reach or not to reach? Perception of body effectivities by young infants

Two experiments compared 6-month-old infants as they reach for an object. All were proficient reachers but with different levels of sitting ability. The object was presented at various distances, within and beyond reach of the infant. In the first experiment, the scaling of perceived reachability in infants with different postural abilities (i.e. non-sitter, near-sitter, and sitter infants) was explored. The second experiment investigated the role of proprioception in the scaling of perceived reachability by non-sitter and sitter infants. In general, results suggest that perceived reachability is calibrated in relation to the degree of postural control achieved by the infant. Infants demonstrate a sense of their own situation in the environment as well as a sense of their own body effectivities. Both determine the execution, or non-execution, of reaching for a distal object by young infants. Copyright

Enhanced Sucking Engagement by Preterm Infants During Intermittent Gavage Feedings

Non-nutritive sucking (NNS) activities were recorded in preterm infants born at gestational age 32 weeks or less during nasogastric feedings. Six infants on intermittent nasogastric feeding schedules were tested with a pacifier in their mouth for three 5-minute periods (before, during, and after gavage feeding). Analysis of the recordings revealed that NNS activities increased markedly during the intermittent nasogastric feeding schedule. The overall proportions of sucking engagement, the mean duration of sucking burst, the mean number of sucks per burst, and the mean duration of individual sucks within a burst increased markedly during gavage feeding compared with both pre-test and post-test periods. NNS by a group of five infants on continuous nasogastric feedings was similar to the pre-test and post-test of the infants on the intermittent nasogastric feeding schedule. These results indicate that in the context of intermittent nasogastric feedings, NNS engagement in tube-fed infants depends on stomach cues and/or temperature changes associated with tube feedings.

Recherche clinique, soins de développement et NIDCAP: aspects méthodologiques spécifiques

Developmental care is the use of a range of medical and nursing interventions to decrease the stress of preterm neonates in neonatal intensive care units. Interventions may be integrated into an individualized approach known as the Neonatal Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Programme (NIDCAP). In comparison with drug trials, it is more difficult to achieve a standard experimental design in this kind of study as the experiments may include several individual approaches. Randomized control trials must remain a predominant practice but use of other methodologies can help to evaluate the benefits of developmental care and offer a better understanding of the impact of this kind of care : qualitative research, benchmarking or animal studies.

Semantic context facilitates odor identification in children and adults

The current study investigated the influence of semantic cues on odor identification in preschool-aged children and adults. We tested the hypothesis that odor identification in a multiple-choice task is facilitated when choices belong to different semantic categories compared to when they belong to the same category. Participants were shown three color pictures, one of which represented the target odor and the other two depicted items that were either from the same or different semantic categories as the target odor. After smelling the target odor, participants were asked to identify the odor they had just smelled by pointing to one of the three pictures. Results indicated that while adults outperformed children, performance in both age groups was better when the picture of the target odor was semantically unrelated to the foil pictures. These data support the idea that well-known deficits in odor identification may result from weak associations between the olfactory percept and semantic memory rather than from poor olfactory perception per se.

L'atteinte de l'objet chez l'enfant né prématuré

Resume Des enfants sains nes a terme et des enfants prematures ont fait l’objet d’une etude longitudinale basee sur une tâche d’atteinte d’objet. Les bebes a terme ont ete etudies a 6, 8 et 10 mois, et les bebes prematures a 6, 8 et 10 mois d’âge corrige. Dans la premiere partie de la tâche, les bebes devaient atteindre un objet nouveau presente seul. Dans la seconde phase, deux objets etaient presentes dont l’un deja presente precedemment et donc devenu familier. Un systeme d’analyse du mouvement a ete utilise pour mesurer les caracteristiques cinematiques des mouvements vers les cibles. Les reponses visuelles a la nouveaute ont ete globalement comparables dans les deux groupes d’enfants, ainsi que le nombre de pics de vitesse et la duree du mouvement et de la prehension. Mais les autres mesures differencient nettement les deux groupes. Par exemple, la vitesse du mouvement diminue avec l’âge chez les bebes nes a terme, en accord avec les donnees de la litterature, tandis qu’elle augmente avec l’âge chez les bebes nes prematures. Ces resultats suggerent des trajectoires developpementales differentes chez les bebes nes a terme et les bebes prematures.

Seeing Odors in Color: Cross-Modal Associations in Children and Adults from Two Cultural Environments

We investigated the occurrence and underlying processes of odor-color associations in French and American 6- to 10-year-old children (n = 386) and adults (n = 137). Nine odorants were chosen according to their familiarity to either cultural group. Participants matched each odor with a color, gave hedonic and familiarity judgments, and identified each odor. By 6 years of age, children displayed culture-specific odor-color associations, but age differences were noted in the type of associations. Children and adults in both cultural groups shared common associations and formed associations that were unique to their environment, underscoring the importance of exposure learning in odor-color associations.