Feasibility Attention Control Training amongst very preterm infants V2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A feasibility study of the Attention Control Training (ACT) intervention amongst very preterm (VP) infants.
IRAS ID
237537
Contact name
Oliver Perra
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Queen's University Belfast - Research Governance, Ethics and Integrity
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Infants’ attention control, defined as the ability to select what to pay attention to, is a fundamental building block for developing learning abilities and behaviour self-regulation. Infants born before term (<37 weeks gestation) display delays in attention control, and these delays cause cascade effects that include learning difficulties and behaviour problems. Infants born before 32 weeks of gestation, known as very preterm (VP), are particularly at risk of persistent difficulties in attention.
A ground-breaking early intervention, the Attention Control Training (ACT), targets infants’ attention control. The novelty of the ACT lies in engaging young infants in “brain-training” using a computer interface, which tracks infants’ gaze direction and presents training visual stimuli appropriate to the infants’ ability level. Results demonstrate ACT improves attention of typically developing infants, contributing to improvements in other cognitive abilities (e.g. memory), but ACT has not been tested in clinical populations such as VP infants.
The present proposal is for a feasibility study of the ACT intervention amongst VP infants aged 1 year (corrected age for prematurity).This feasibility study is necessary in order to adapt the ACT material and presentation to VP infants, and in particular to:
(a) Adapt the ACT to VP infants’ attention span, ensuring infants’ engagement;
(b) Adapt the ACT to a non-lab setting, namely a charity community centre, which will allow delivering the intervention alongside regular parental visits to the centre;
(c) Investigate the acceptability of a Randomised Controlled Trial and its training schedule by parents of VP infants.The proposed study will allow us to identify solutions to these problems, ensuring the ACT material and delivery are customised for VP infants. In a successive pilot study, we will test other processes, such as recruitment of larger samples from clinical units, which we plan to use in a full-scale trial.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
18/NI/0010
Date of REC Opinion
9 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion