Abstracto

Infants vulnerability markers to dysfunctions in socioemotional development: A validation process

Daniel Ignacio da Silva and Maria de La O Ramallo Verissimo

Statement of the Problem: This study proposed the validation of vulnerability markers for dysfunctions in the socioemotional development of infants. We sought to build an instrument to capture the dysfunctions that condition their socio-emotional development process, which can be conceptualized as a process of continuity and change in the child’s social and emotional characteristics, characterized by the expression of emotion in social contexts, in social triggers of emotional expressions, and the social construction of emotional experience and understanding. Developmental disorders include a group of disorders characterized by impaired intellectual, physical, and socio-emotional competencies. They are related to brain disorders, caused by genetic alterations or injuries in the growing central nervous system, due to exposure to teratogenic agents, traumas, infectious processes, severe nutritional deficiency, and hypoxia or neonatal ischemia. Studies have confirmed that exposure factors of a sociocultural, socioeconomic, psychosocial, and biological nature are determinants of the child’s development in all its dimensions, including the socioemotional. The exposure to context-related factors conditions the socioemotional development of infants defines infants’ vulnerability to socioemotional dysfunctions. Thus, this paper aims to validate the vulnerability markers of infants for dysfunctions in their socioemotional development.