Welcome to the 9th EAPS Congress Programme Scheduling

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Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, staff working in pre-school education were asked to wear facemasks, prompting worries about the ability of young children to recognize the emotions of their caretakers. For pictures without facemasks, preschoolers between 36-72 months of age had correct recognition response rates between 11.8% and 13.1%, whereas children between 7-13 years had worse emotions recognition, when showing pictures with digitally added facemasks compared to pictures without facemasks. Our objective was to study the impact of facemasks on emotion recognition of preschool children.

Methods: We created a dataset of 90 pictures of adults with and without facemasks, imitating joy, anger, or sadness. Children in nine day-care centres were seated in front of a computer and shown the pictures in succession. Children could either name the imitated emotion, or point on a card showing emoticons of these three emotions.

Results: The sample consisted of 278 children (girls 48.6%, M_age=52.3 months, SD_age=9.6 months). The global correct response rate was 43.4%. Emotions imitated with facemask were less recognised (41.9%) than when showed without facemask (45.0%, χ²=25.6, p< 0.001). There was no significant sex difference for the global correct response rate, nor anger and joy. Boys identified sadness (25.6%) more often than girls did (22.3%, χ²=12.2, p<0.001).

Discussion: Facemasks had a statistically significant but clinically weak impact on the correct response rate for all children, which should be reassuring for caregivers. Further studies are needed to investigate the role of facemasks in other aspects of development and with children with developmental issues.

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Humans beings are born to be wired. Infants have innate skills to coordinate behaviors, emotional states, and neurophysiology with caregivers. At the same time, our inborn capacity to be interactional makes us also highly sensitive to conditions in which our social wires are challenged, interrupted, and broken. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented traumatic experience that has resulted in many different challenges to our social wires and the psychological effects may be especially important for individuals who are experiencing periods of heightened neuroplasticity and openness to environmental stimulations, such as women and infants the first thousand days after conception. For this reason, in April 2020 we launched the MOM-COPE project to study the psychobiological consequences and the adaptation response of mothers and infants in a pandemic time. The project engaged ten neonatal units in Italy. Self-report, biological (DNA methylation) and observational measures have been collected from birth to 12 months, according to a longitudinal and prospective study design. Findings to date suggest that (a) prenatal pandemic-related stress may increase dramatically the risk of depression and anxiety in mothers, (b) this altered maternal psychological state may associate with a less-than-optimal caregiving environment, (c) prenatal pandemic-related stress may also contribute to the epigenetic regulation of stress-related genes in the infants, and (d) both altered caregiving environment and epigenetic changes contribute to programming behavioral development trajectories of infants during the first months of life. The implications of this project will be discussed, highlighting the impact for clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and citizens.

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Social distancing was the only option available during the COVID-19 pandemic until a
vaccine was developed. However, this had a major impact on human relationships
and bonding between parents and neonates was/is a major concern. Separation during
this health emergency could have lifelong consequences for offspring, and there are
even greater concerns if newborn infants are sick or vulnerable and need intensive
care. We adressed the issue on how bonding was safely supported and maintained without risking
infecting neonates, by comparing the international guidelines and the safe
actions that were proposed within those frameworks.