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The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated innovations in data collection protocols, including use of virtual or remote visits. Although developmental scientists used virtual visits prior to COVID-19, validation of virtual assessments of infant socioemotional and language development are lacking. We aimed to fill this gap by validating a virtual visit protocol that assesses mother and infant behavior during the Still Face Paradigm (SFP) and infant receptive and expressive communication using the Bayley-III Screening Test. Validation was accomplished through comparisons of data (i.e., proportions of missing data for a given task; observed infant and maternal behaviors) collected during in-person laboratory visits and virtual visits conducted via Zoom. Of the 119 mother-infant dyads who participated, 73 participated in lab visits only, 13 participated in virtual visits only, and 33 dyads participated in a combination of lab and virtual visits across four time points (3, 6, 9, and 12 months). Maternal perspectives of, and preferences for, virtual visits were also assessed. Proportions of missing data were higher during virtual visits, particularly for assessments of infant receptive communication. Nonetheless, comparisons of virtual and laboratory visits within a given time point (3, 6, or 9 months) indicated that mothers and infants showed similar proportions of facial expressions, vocalizations and directions of gaze during the SFP and infants showed similar and expected patterns of behavioral change across SFP episodes. Infants also demonstrated comparable expressive and receptive communicative abilities across virtual and laboratory assessments. Maternal reports of ease and preference for virtual visits varied by infant age, with mothers of 12-month-old infants reporting, on average, less ease of virtual visits and a preference for in-person visits. Results are discussed in terms of feasibility and validity of virtual visits for assessing infant socioemotional and language development, and broader advantages and disadvantages of virtual visits are also considered.

Having an infant in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) elicits maternal anxiety, which may hamper parent−child bonding. We performed a prospective cohort study to describe anxiety in mothers of infants born before 30 weeks of gestation during NICU stay in The Netherlands, and investigated the influence of infant stress and gestational age. Second, we performed a randomized-controlled live-performed music therapy trial (LPMT trial) to investigate whether music therapy applied to the infant alleviated maternal anxiety. The relation between infant stress, gestational age, and maternal anxiety was measured in 45 mother−infant dyads, using the Neonatal Infant Stressor Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The effect of LPMT on anxiety was assessed in 21 mothers whose infants were assigned to either LPMT (n = 12) or waitlist (n = 9). Mothers completed the STAI before and after this period. Maternal anxiety decreased over time in all mothers, and was strongly related with infant stress (r = 0.706, p &lt, 0.001), but not with gestational age. Anxiety scores decreased by 12% after LMPT, and increased by 1% after a waitlist period (p = 0.30). Our results indicate that LPMT in the weeks after birth may accelerate the reduction of maternal anxiety. Further research should focus on the effects on mother−child bonding.

School violence is a national problem characterized by behaviors that intend to cause harm and involve aggressive acts between students or employees and students. The goal of this study was to investigate whether there is any relation between those stressful behaviors and the types of involvement in school violence, as well as the relation between stress, school violence, and gender. Participants were 109 students, aged 9 to 14 years, of a public school located in a low human development index area in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil. These participants expressed consent and their parents authorized their participation by signing an Informed Consent Form. The students responded to the School Violence Scale and the Infant Stress Scale. Psychological, physical and material violence was observed through the analysis of the following categories: victimization of students by students, victimization of students by employees, and authorship of violence. Nevertheless, most of the students surveyed were not under considerable state of stress. The results showed significant positive correlations between stress and victimization of students by students; stress and suffering from psychological violence by employees; and stress and being perpetrator of psychological, physical, or virtual violence, as well between stress and risky behaviors. It was also found that, compared with boys, girls are more often victimized with respect to psychological violence by students, practice psychological and virtual violence more often, and suffer more stress A violência escolar é um problema nacional e se caracteriza por comportamentos que visam causar danos e que envolvem atos agressivos entre alunos, de alunos a funcionários e de funcionários a alunos. O objetivo deste estudo compreende investigar se há relação entre comportamentos de estresse e tipos de envolvimento em violência escolar, bem como a relação entre estresse, violência escolar e gênero. Participaram da pesquisa 106 alunos de 9 a 14 anos de uma escola pública situada em uma área de baixo índice de desenvolvimento humano da cidade de Fortaleza, Brasil. Esses participantes manifestaram assentimento e seus pais autorizaram a participação mediante assinatura do Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido (TCLE). Foram respondidas a Escala de Violência Escolar (EVE) e a Escala de Stress Infantil (ESI). Como resultados foi possível perceber pelas categorias analisadas (vitimização de alunos por alunos, vitimização de alunos por funcionários e autoria de violência) ocorrências de violência física, psicológica e material, mas a maior parte dos alunos não estava em estado considerável de estresse. Notaram-se correlações positivas significativas entre estresse e vitimização de alunos por alunos; estresse e sofrer violência psicológica por funcionários; e estresse e ser autor de violência psicológica, física e virtual, bem como estresse e comportamentos de risco. Constatou-se que meninas são mais vítimas do que meninos em relação à violência psicológica por alunos; são mais autoras de violência psicológica e virtual do que meninos e sofrem mais estresse do que alunos do gênero masculino.

Current technologies to allow continuous monitoring of vital signs in pre-term infants in the hospital require adhesive electrodes or sensors to be in direct contact with the patient. These can cause stress, pain, and also damage the fragile skin of the infants. It has been established previously that the colour and volume changes in superficial blood vessels during the cardiac cycle can be measured using a digital video camera and ambient light, making it possible to obtain estimates of heart rate or breathing rate. Most of the papers in the literature on non-contact vital sign monitoring report results on adult healthy human volunteers in controlled environments for short periods of time. The authors' current clinical study involves the continuous monitoring of pre-term infants, for at least four consecutive days each, in the high-dependency care area of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. The authors have further developed their video-based, non-contact monitoring methods to obtain continuous estimates of heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation for infants nursed in incubators. In this Letter, it is shown that continuous estimates of these three parameters can be computed with an accuracy which is clinically useful. During stable sections with minimal infant motion, the mean absolute error between the camera-derived estimates of heart rate and the reference value derived from the ECG is similar to the mean absolute error between the ECG-derived value and the heart rate value from a pulse oximeter. Continuous non-contact vital sign monitoring in the NICU using ambient light is feasible, and the authors have shown that clinically important events such as a bradycardia accompanied by a major desaturation can be identified with their algorithms for processing the video signal.