Weight gain in preterm low birth weight infants with multisensory intervention

Background: Birth weight is a significant determinant of newborn survival. In neonatal deaths, LBW is the underlying cause in 60-80% cases. This study was aimed to assess whether preterm infants receiving Multisensory intervention had more rapid weight gain compared to control group infants during NICU stay.Methods: Subjects for the study were preterm infants between 32 to 37 weeks of gestation age with birth weight between 1500 g to 2500 g and staying in NICU. Participants meeting inclusion criteria were randomly divided into either experimental group (n=15) or control group (n=15). The experimental group received Multisensory stimulation such as Auditory, Tactile, Visual and Vestibular stimulation for 10 consecutive days (15 min. /day) in NICU. Control group received routine NICU care. Weight was measured using an electronic weighing scale at day-1, day-5 and day-10 of intervention in both the groups and collected data was analysed.Results: The preterm infants of the experimental group had shown better growth than those in the control group with statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between the study and the control group at end of 10 days of intervention.Conclusions: From Analysed data, it is concluded that 5-day of Multisensory intervention could not elicit statistically significant improvement in weight gain, but 10 days intervention could elicit significant improvement. The result supports the use of multisensory intervention as a cost-effective therapy to promote growth.

The visual and visuo-haptic exploration of geometrical shapes increases their recognition in preschoolers

This study assessed the benefit of a multisensory intervention on the recognition of geometrical shapes in kindergarten children. Two interventions were proposed, both conducted by the teachers and involving exercises focused on the properties of the shapes but differing in the sensory modalities used to explore them. In the ‘‘VH’’ intervention, the visual and haptic modalities were used to explore the raised shapes while only the visual modality was involved in the ‘‘V’’ (Visual) intervention. We compared the effect of the two interventions on the acquisition of conceptual knowledge about squares, rectangles and triangles in 72 preschoolers. Results showed that children progressed more importantly following VH than V intervention for rectangles and triangles. The addition of the haptic modality in intervention provides beneficial effects by allowing children to better understand what is included in a shape category. Results are discussed in relation to the multimodal coding (in line with embodied theories) and the analytic perception generated by the haptic modality.