From the lab to the field: acceptability of using electroencephalography with Indian preschool children

Abstract

Background: Measurement of social and cognitive brain development using electroencephalography (EEG) offers the potential for early identification of children with elevated risk of developmental delay. However, there have been no published reports of how acceptable EEG technology is to parents and children within communities, especially in low-resource contexts such as in low and middle income countries (LMICs), which is an important question for the potential scalability of these assessments. We use a mixed-methods approach to examine whether EEG assessments are acceptable to children and their caregivers in a low resource community setting in India. Methods: We assessed the acceptability of neurophysiology research and Braintools (a novel neurodevelopmental assessment toolkit using concurrent EEG and eye-tracking technology) using: 1) a child engagement measure, 2) interviews with caregivers (n=8); 3) survey about caregiver's experience (n=36). Framework analysis was used to analyse interview data. Results: A high level of child engagement in EEG tasks was demonstrated, with children's gaze at the screen during the task averaging at 85.4% (±12.06%) of the task time. External distractions and noise during the tasks were measured, but not found to significantly effect child's attention to the screen during EEG tasks. Key topics were examined using the framework analysis: 1) parental experience of the assessment; and 2) the acceptability of research. From topic 1, four sub-themes were identified: i) caregivers' experience of the assessment, ii) caregivers' perception of child's experience of assessment, iii) logistical barriers and facilitators to participation, and iv) recommendations for improvement. Results from interviews and the survey indicated acceptability for gaze-controlled EEG research for parents and children. From topic 2, three themes were identified: i) caregivers' understanding of the research, ii) barriers to participation, and iii) facilitators to participation. Barriers to participation mainly included logistical challenges, such as geographic location and time, whereas involvement of the wider family in decision making was highlighted as an important facilitator to partake in the research. Conclusions: We demonstrate for the first time the acceptability of conducting neurodevelopmental assessments using concurrent EEG and eye-tracking in preschool children in uncontrolled community LMIC settings. This kind of research appears to be acceptable to the community and we identify potential barriers and facilitators of this research, thus allowing for future large scale research projects to be conducted investigating neurodevelopment and risk factors for suboptimal development in LMICs.

Keywords: EEG; child development; low and middle income country; neuroethics; qualitative research.