Conference Agenda

Dialogic reading is a method of shared picture book reading that is particularly well-suited for young children in the early stages of language acquisition, where children's active communicative participation is explicitly encouraged (Whitehurst et al. 1994). A wealth of studies has demonstrated the positive effects of dialogic reading on language development (Ennemoser et al. 2013, Pillinger et al. 2022).

Children’s picture books are available not only in printed form but also as picture book apps. These formats differ in several aspects, particularly as apps often incorporate interactive elements such as hotspots, animations, sounds, and even tasks or games.

There is an ongoing debate, both in practical applications and in academic research, regarding the impact of digital picture book apps on children aged four to five. This question is central to the ongoing SNSF-Project presented in this poster. Among other objectives, the project examines how digital apps, compared to traditional printed picture books, affect quality of interaction, children's engagement during shared reading interactions and early literacy skills.

The poster presentation aims to outline the project design as well as the theoretical model that lies at the basis, focusing on how the choice of medium (book or app) is considered within a multidimensional framework of factors and discussing the implications of said framework. Furthermore, the poster presentation gives an insight into the ongoing work.

This study investigates how children’s speech is affected by language-specific characteristics, and how these characteristics are related to the reparation of misunderstandings. Variability in children’s communicative environments, such as the interaction partners and spoken languages, significantly shapes their communicative behaviour. Bilingualism in children, which inherently increases this variability, is associated with greater use of non-verbal means for communication, greater flexibility in using different means to communicate, a stronger ability to adapt their speech to listeners, and a greater likelihood of repairing communication breakdowns.

While previous research explored these adaptive behaviours in bilingual children, the specific roles of speech elements like fundamental frequency (i.e., perceived pitch) and interjections (e.g., “Aha!” and “Oh!”) - which serve to express emotions, arousal, and attract attention - remain underexplored. To address this gap, this study will examine language-specific differences in fundamental frequency among monolingual and bilingual preschool children (N = 100) in natural non-interactive speech during a picture-description task. Further, the study focuses on how children adapt their speech following misunderstandings, during natural interaction with the experimenter in which children describe the location of known and novel objects on a shelf.

This poster outlines the research design, methodology and preliminary results. The findings will offer insights into the role of speech in communicative development, particularly in how children repair communication breakdowns.

Smartphones are omnipresent in today’s society. Regarding the family context, there is a lack in knowledge of how parental smartphone use might distract some parents from interacting with their children, and what potential consequences thereof might be. Thus, we examined the potential role of parental problematic smartphone use, phubbing, and parenting in the relationship between parental neuroticism and child emotion processing (recognition and regulation).

We investigated data of German speaking Swiss parents and their children from a lab (N = 48, 87.5% mothers, 47.9% girls, parental age = 38.9 ± 5.4 years, child age = 5.7 ± 1.6 years) and an online (N = 193, 89.1% mothers, 52.3% girls, parental age = 39.9 ± 6.3 years, child age = 6.6 ± 3.4 years) study. Data were collected using questionnaires and a behavioral test. Data were analyzed using linear regression and mediation models.

We found no direct association between parental neuroticism and child emotion processing. However, parental phubbing mediated the effect of neuroticism on emotion dysregulation. Additionally, we found a positive indirect effect for parental neuroticism on child emotion dysregulation through parental problematic smartphone use. We only found effects for emotion regulation, but not for emotion recognition.

The findings suggest that parental neuroticism might negatively affect child emotion regulation abilities, not directly, but only through phubbing and problematic smartphone use. Thus, it might be important to target parental phubbing in interventions and prevention campaigns.

Author

Doris Bodmer (Author)1,2

Cornelia Wäfler (Advisor) 1

Affiliation

1 Center for Systemic Counseling, Bern, Switzerland (ZSB Bern)

2 Occupational Therapy zur Kesselschmiede, Winterthur, Switzerland

Background / Introduction

Transgenerational transmission of attachment insecurities can cause parents to be triggered in emotionally demanding situations (Brisch, 2016). The waiting period for therapy represents a highly stressful phase for many families. Social support can reduce stress levels and lead to behavioral changes in the child (Sroufe, 2022). The Milwaukee Model by de Shazer and Berg (1991-2009) is a low-threshold, solution-oriented brief intervention that can be utilized during the often months-long wait for a therapy slot. However, the effects of this intervention on the self-efficacy of families in this specific situation have not yet been studied.

Method

A case study was conducted with three families, each receiving four counseling sessions while waiting for the start of occupational therapy for their child. The impact of the intervention on perceived stress, self-efficacy, and family dynamics was examined through a qualitative analysis of the transcribed counseling sessions and a self-developed questionnaire sent to the families after the final session.

Results

After the first counseling session, the families already reported a noticeable reduction in their perceived stress. The waiting period was productively used to address family challenges and strengthen existing resources. Empowerment and family dynamics were positively influenced.

Conclusion

The brief intervention based on de Shazer and Berg appears to offer a way to make good use of the waiting time for therapy slots and to promote family empowerment. While it does not replace occupational therapy, it led to positive changes in all families in terms of self-efficacy (empowerment) and family dynamics.

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder in the ICD-11. Symptoms of ASD include social impairments, communication deficits, and repetitive behaviors, often observable as early as 2 years of age. Altered or increased cortical and subcortical volumes have been found in neonates at risk for ASD. This study aims to investigate whether MRI at term equivalent age (TEA) can predict ASD symptoms at 2 years corrected age, as measured by the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT).

Methods

This sample is part of an ongoing longitudinal cohort study at the University Hospital Zurich. Structural images were acquired without sedation on a 3T GE MR750 scanner using a T2-weighted sequence in the sagittal, axial, and coronal planes. T2 images will be reconstructed using super-resolution techniques (SVRTK) and segmented with nnU-Nets (Steger et al., 2023). ASD symptoms will be modeled in relation to total, cortical, deep gray matter (GM), and white matter (WM) volumes, adjusting for age and scanner upgrade covariates.

Results:

39 [gestational age (GA) at birth 34.9 ± 5.04 weeks; postmenstrual age (PMA) at MRI 41.06 ± 1.42 weeks; scanner up-grade before:after 30:9] neonates will be analyzed. Analysis is ongoing.

Discussion and Conclusion:

This project may provide insights into ASD brain development in at-risk neonates and potentially enable earlier detection of this disorder.

Introduction

Infants with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) are at risk for neurodevelopmental impairment. In IUGR altered cerebral blood supply may contribute to suboptimal brain maturation, including reduced grey matter (GM) and altered white matter (WM) volumes. Yet, the association between neonatal brain perfusion and cerebral volume remains to be investigated. Here, we aimed to assess the relationship between perfusion and cerebral volume in neonates with IUGR and intrauterine growth appropriate for gestational age (AGA) by arterial spin labeling and structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) at term equivalent age (TEA).

Methods

Perfusion and structural images were acquired without sedation on a 3T scanner. Perfusion maps were registered to an in-house neonatal perfusion template and whole brain, cortical and deep GM perfusion were extracted using the automated anatomical labeling masks (Tzourio-Mazoyer et al., 2002). Structural images will be reconstructed using super-resolution reconstruction (SVRTK) and segmented using nnU-Nets (according to Steger et al., 2023). Total, cortical, and deep GM volumes will be modeled in relation to group and perfusion signals, adjusting for age and scanner upgrade.

Results:

46 infants with IUGR [22 female; postnatal age at MRI (mean±SD) 65.50 ± 26.98 days; gestational age (GA) at birth 32.10 ± 3.88 weeks; postmenstrual age (PMA) at MRI 41.46 ± 1.62 weeks; scanner up-grade before:after 16:30] and 56 with AGA [22 female; 51.55 ± 35.06 days; 33.94 ± 4.99 weeks; 41.30 ± 1.43 weeks; 21:35] will be analyzed. Analysis is ongoing.

Discussion and Conclusion:

The current project will provide insights into IUGR pathophysiology and eventually help inform clinical practice.

Since 2021, digital education has been a new compulsory subject in French-speaking Switzerland, covering media, computer science and the use of digital technology. Previously seen as a complement to other subjects, its teaching has met with some resistance from teachers. However, children's digital skills develop early, often stimulated by the home environment and access to technologies such as smartphones, tablets and online resources, highlighting a gap between children's personal digital experiences and their integration in school (Chaudron et al., 2015; Vaiopoulou et al., 2021). Studies by Edwards et al. (2020) and Thorpe et al. (2015) reveal a lag in the adoption of digital tools in preschool settings. This gap calls for consideration of the use of 'convergent play' (Edwards, 2013), which combines traditional and digital play to enhance learning and simulate the use of digital technology. The integration of digital tools with traditional materials allows children to adapt pretend play to contemporary realities (Arnott, 2016).

As part of a research and training project conducted by HEP-VD and HEIG-VD in the canton of Vaud, we worked with five first cycle teachers who were motivated to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning through pupil-initiated play. Inspired by Fleer's (2018, 2019) work on pop-ups in conceptual playworlds and Vogt et al.'s (2020) work on "wir spielen Zukunft", our research allowed us to adapt an instructional engineering approach into an operational model designed for teaching foundation learning skills. This poster discusses the challenges and didactic perspectives of such an approach. The power of the model lies in its ability to recognise the pre-existing knowledge of the pupils, allowing the identification of learning objectives in line with the Plan d'études romandes (PER), while at the same time taking into account the needs and progress of young learners.

Introduction: Very preterm (VPT) born children are at higher risk for developmental delays. Recent studies suggest that early screen exposure may further impact child development negatively. This study investigates whether cognitive, linguistic, motor, and multisensory competencies differ in VPT children exposed to screens at 12 months of age compared with those who are not.

Methods: Sixty-four 12-month-old VPT children (born <32 weeks) participated in this study. Parents completed an online questionnaire detailing family screen use and the total amount of children’s exposure to screen. Cognitive, language, and motor skills were assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. In addition, children were proposed short experimental tasks to measure prosocial behavior, joint attention, and emotion recognition and multisensory exploration.

Preliminary results: The average number of screens per household was seven, and the most used device by parents was the smartphone. Twenty-five (39%) VPT children were exposed to screens by 12 months, averaging 4 hours per week. Results showed a significant correlation between screen time and lower cognitive and linguistic scores. Additionally, screen exposure negatively correlated with tactile and visual exploration abilities, suggesting that increased screen time may hinder these critical developmental skills.

Discussion and Conclusions: These findings emphasize the vulnerability of VPT children to the negative effects of early screen exposure, demonstrating associations with poorer cognitive, linguistic, and sensory-motor outcomes. Given the importance of early developmental milestones, limiting screen time in infancy may be crucial, especially for preterm populations. Future research should examine long-term impacts and potential interventions to support optimal development.

The ongoing digitalization and shifting technological landscape pose critical challenges for early years education: implementing transversal digital education (DE) in primary schools while ensuring teacher professional development to keep pace with these advancements. The research project DEEP development seeks to co-construct a long-term professional development (PD) strategy tailored to the needs of teachers in the first and second primary school years. In this way, the project aims to ensure equitable DE in primary schools.

The first phase of the project involved assessing the challenges and needs of teachers in delivering DE. For this purpose, a systematic literature review using PRISMA-methodology was conducted. Furthermore, focus group interviews with N = 16 primary school teachers (1st and 2nd grade) from the German, Italian, and French-speaking parts of Switzerland were conducted. This approach enabled the identification of barriers and opportunities pertaining to regional conditions.

Based on eight papers the systematic review identified key barriers (Hew and Brush, 2007) in implementing DE, such as teacher beliefs, knowledge and skills, resource constraints, institutional practices and subject culture.

First results of the content analysis indicate that the challenges identified by teachers are consistent with those previously documented in the review. However, they also reveal novel barriers and needs. For example, teachers reported that collaborating with parents on digital education issues is a major challenge. In addition, some teachers feel that expectations of their technological skills are too high.

An understanding of the needs and requirements for continuous and sustainable PD will be discussed.

Inclusion in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) helps children with disability to develop socio-emotional, cognitive and friendship skills and contributes to shaping the vision of an inclusive society from an early age. In Switzerland, the educational landscape prior to formal school entry lacks robust guidelines, making inclusive ECEC vulnerable to various challenges. This study examines the attitudes, self-efficacy, training needs and motivation for further training in inclusive education of 946 pre-service ECEC educators in their final year of vocational training. The results show that the participants have generally positive attitudes towards inclusive education and moderate self-efficacy. In particular, knowledge and previous experience with people with disabilities has a positive influence on perceptions of inclusion, and further influences perceived training needs and motivation for further training. These findings underline the importance of providing knowledge and practical experience in vocational training to better equip future educators for inclusive ECEC environments. Furthermore, the study highlights the potential of post-graduate training to deepen the knowledge of educators and to support early childhood centers in developing and implementing inclusive educational frameworks.

Previous studies assessing procedural learning in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) used traditional serial reaction time (SRT) tasks, which failed to provide evidence of temporal order response learning. In these tasks, participants must press keyboard keys corresponding to different spatially dissociated stimuli as fast as possible. However, because individuals with WS have severe visuo-constructive deficits, these tasks are likely inadequate to assess temporal order response learning in this population. We therefore designed two SRT tasks in which responses are not dissociated from the stimulus location: (1) a manual task using a touchscreen computer, in which participants responded by touching the stimulus; (2) an oculomotor task using eye-tracking technology, in which participants responded by visually fixating the stimulus. We measured reaction times (RT) to respond to stimuli appearing in random locations or in repeated sequences of three or four locations. Learning was inferred if RT were greater during random-sequence blocks than in repeated-sequence blocks.

Results showed that 19/30 individuals with WS and 36/51 typically developing children (TDC) demonstrated learning in the manual SRT task, whereas only 3 individuals with WS compared to 30 TDC did so in the oculomotor task. We conclude that: (1) Individuals with WS exhibit temporal order response learning in a manual SRT when the responses are spatially consistent with the stimulus locations; (2) As a group, individuals with WS do not exhibit temporal order response learning in an oculomotor SRT, even though the responses are spatially consistent with the stimulus location.

Introduction

Children’s social-emotional development, particularly in early childhood, is linked to social interactions. While digital tools can support the development of socio-emotional competences, an excessive use of technology may affect children's social development. Therefore, promoting socio-emotional competences and well-being from an early age is crucial. Positive education can be a supportive approach for this purpose. One of the most recent approaches in this field is that of character strengths. Character strengths are unique to each individual and are reflected in thoughts, feelings and actions. They are particularly effective in enhancing well-being and fostering socio-emotional competences, such as social awareness and relationship skills. Despite the benefits, studies focusing on the impact of character strengths in early education are still limited, and this study aims to address this gap.

Methods

The study includes a baseline data collection on children’s well-being and socio-emotional competences in Ticino pre-primary and primary schools (September-October 2024). Further, using a quasi-experimental protocol including a control group, a character strengths-based intervention will be implemented in classrooms by teachers (previously trained in spring 2024). A second data collection is planned after the intervention (May-June 2025).

Results/Discussion

The study protocol will be presented and preliminary data on well-being and social-emotional competences will be shown and discussed.

Conclusion

The project shall promote children's socio-emotional competences and well-being by providing them with valuable tools for dealing with the digital age in which they already live at an early age.

Introduction: Pediatricians and family doctors (primary care providers, PCPs) provide the majority of outpatient care for children in Switzerland. While the number of pediatricians in private practice is decreasing in Switzerland, the number of consultations in pediatric emergency departments (EDs) has been rising continuously for years. However, a large proportion of the medical conditions treated in EDs could be managed by PCPs. We therefore aimed to investigate parents’ expectations of PCPs and their usage patterns of pediatric EDs in the canton of Zurich

Methods: A telephone survey was conducted with 130 parents whose children were treated in an outpatient setting at one of the participating pediatric EDs (Kantonsspital Winterthur, Stadtspital Zürich, University Children’s Hospital Zurich) in a.

Results: Most families (96.9 %) stated they have a PCP and expressed satisfaction with the care provided by their PCP (97.6 %). However, 30% of families were dissatisfied with the availability of timely appointments, particularly in cases of an acute illness. The most frequent reason for an ED-visit was that the pediatrician’s office was closed, or no short-time appointment was available (56.2 %). Additionally, 38.5 % of families reported a perceived need for diagnostics or treatments not offered by their PCP. Although 83.8 % of parents believed that their child's condition was an emergency requiring rapid treatment, most consultations (95.2 %) were categorized as non-urgent.

Discussion: Even though most families have a PCP, the increasing reliance on pediatric EDs suggests different contributing factors. These include challenges in accessing short-term appointments at PCP`s offices and parental misconceptions of situations qualifying as emergencies. An approach to reduce the burden on EDs could therefore be to expand services such as wound care or diagnostic capabilities in PCP practices.

Currently there is scarce research on the use and benefits of podcasts for practitioners in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC), but there is some evidence in the medical field that the use of podcasts results in knowledge retention and changes in practitioners’ behaviours (Kelly et al., 2022).

How to design the communication between science and practice within the podcast is one of the key questions when producing a podcast format for practitioners in ECEC.

Theoretical frameworks on the relationship between research and practice were compared for the design of the podcast format.

One of the main results is to consider scientific and professional practices as two separate practices with their respective characteristics, bodies of knowledge and potential benefits for each other (Leonhard, 2018). In this poster we present the implications of these results on the design of the podcast backed by user metrics.

Viewing research and the professional field as independent practices, with their own forms of knowledge, and at the same time working on the points of reference seems to be a laborious but worthwhile approach that meets with broad acceptance among both experts and listeners. Whether children profit from growing up among adults that use this digital resource for professionalisation, remains to be investigated.

Several studies of established adverse effects on prenatal attachment and postnatal infant outcomes in the presence of maternal risk factors including a history of interpersonal violent trauma exposure from infancy through adulthood and related psychopathology including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). The aim of this study was to identify which maternal-fetal psychobiological factors might be predictive of intergenerational transmission of maternal stress prenatally and psychobiological dysregulation postnatally at ages 4-6 months. Methods: This poster presents preliminary prenatal results on an ethical commission approved study of 80 women initially evaluated at 24-26 weeks gestion in a public hospital obstetrics clinic. Socio-demographic, adverse childhood event (ACE), psychiatric symptom and social support questionnaires were administered to mothers. Pregnancy-specific anxiety and attachment quality were measured via the Pregnancy-Specific Anxiety and Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (MAAS) respectively. Complete questionnaire data were available for 77 women and were analyzed using parametric and non-parametric correlations, multiple linear and Lasso regression and structural equation modeling. Results: Maternal prenatal levels of depression, maltreatment and other ACE- and later violence related PTSD and socio-economic status (SES) were together predictive of increased pregnancy-specific anxiety (p=.032, .003 and .012 respectively. ACE- and later violence related PTSD and MDD were predictive of lower quality MAAS scores (p<.011, <.001 respectively). ACE and later life-events themselves were not significantly predictive.

Conclusions: These preliminary analyses are consistent with the existing literature (Saravanan V, Desai G, Satyanarayana VA, 2023; Merrick & Narayan, 2024) for this Swiss sample. This bodes well for biological and postnatal analyses to follow and supports the need for prenatal intervention.

What is the relation between parenting attitudes and young children’s screen time?

In turn, what is the relation between screen time and language development?

We addressed these questions during the first COVID-related lockdown, in 2022, by administering Early Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire (EPAQ, see Hembacher and Frank, 2020) to parents of young children between 8- and 36-months of age in Norway (n=170) and the UK (n=289) at the onset of the lockdown, and a screen-time questionnaire at the end of the lockdown. Vocabulary size was assessed at both timepoints. First, to evaluate the contribution of parenting attitudes, we ran mixed-effects models with the three EPAQ factors (adapted for the UK and Norway; Allegretta et al., 2024) in interaction with the child’s age, gender and maternal education as fixed effects, while random effects included maternal education per country. Screen time during lockdown was positively related to higher scores on factor “Rules-and-Respect” (p=.012), and to the child’s age, but negatively related to maternal education (both p<.001).

The second analysis revealed that while screen time was negatively associated with expressive vocabulary gains (p=.007) during lockdown (in line with Kartushina et al., 2022, and beyond pandemic times, see Rosslund, Kartushina & Mayor, 2024), high scores on “Rules-and-Respect” were associated with larger gains in expressive vocabulary.

In sum, while screen exposure was captured by socio-economic factors (maternal education, child’s age), parenting attitudes also predicted children’s screen time. Furthermore, expressive vocabulary gains were negatively associated with screen time, with complex direct and indirect contribution of parenting attitudes.