Newborns’ attention linked to later childhood behavioural problems
New Birkbeck study finds link between babies' looking patterns and later behavioural problems
Babies’ looking patterns in the first few days of life have been linked to later behavioural problems in childhood in new research from Birkbeck, University of London, London Metropolitan University and the University of Padua in Italy.
The research found an association between individual differences in visual attention to objects among newborn babies in the first days after birth and later behavioural problems in later childhood, including hyperactivity and problems in relationships with peers.
Senior author Dr Angelica Ronald, of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, said:
“We’ve found for the first time that there’s a significant link between the way in which newborn babies look at images and their later temperament and behaviours in childhood, such as hyperactivity. Because the babies were only just born when we observed their looking patterns, the influences that made these newborns differ between each other in their visual attention style are likely to be present at birth. This rules out the environment after birth, and leaves either genetic predispositions or influences from the environment the baby experiences in the womb.”
“Spending relatively longer looking at each individual stimulus as a newborn was associated with having fewer behaviour problems and fewer impulsive and overactive behaviours in middle childhood.”
The study, published today in Scientific Reports and funded by the European Union, the Waterloo Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council (MRC), builds on earlier work by the research team which found a link between differences in attention among seven-month-old infants and later childhood behavioural problems, to examine for the first time whether a similar link exists for newborns.
The methodology
- The Italian lab, led by Professor Teresa Farroni, studied the visual attention of 180 newborns, born between 2004 and 2012 in a maternity ward at a hospital in Monfalcone (Gorizia), north Italy. Aged between 1 and 4 days of age, the newborn babies were shown a series of images and the duration of their attention – or dwell time – was measured.
- In order to follow up the newborn babies, families of 80 of the same children were then contacted when the same children were between three and ten years old, and parents were asked to rate their children’s temperament and behaviour using standard psychological questionnaires.
- Specifically, the researchers examined three major aspects of temperament and behaviour. First, they examined ‘effortful control’, which is the ability to regulate emotions. Poor effortful control has been linked with more impulsivity and hyperactivity, and poor effortful control can be one indicator that a child might develop Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
- Second, they examined ‘surgency’, which is a temperamental trait describing a tendency towards high levels of extraversion, movement, and impulsivity and which has been linked with aggression and behavioural problems in childhood.
- Third, they examined ‘behavioural difficulties’. Behavioural difficulties cover a range of problematic behaviours including hyperactivity, inattention, conduct problems, emotional difficulties and peer problems.
- The researchers then compared newborns’ average dwell time with these behavioural and temperamental traits of behaviour in childhood in order to look for significant associations between the two.
First author Dr Kostas A Papageorgiou, of London Metropolitan University’s School of Psychology, added:
“Studying newborns’ attention constitutes a window into the developmental mechanisms that contribute to variation in attention and behaviour throughout the lifespan. While there are many factors which influence behavioural problems in childhood, our findings suggest that part of what affects later behaviour is already present at birth.
"In the future, these findings could help to identify babies who are at higher risk of attentional difficulties like those seen in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and could aid the development of early interventions which would aim to help improve attentional abilities.”
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