'Social touch and human development' ... an interesting paper.

I would like to thank my most estimable colleague Lynnette Menzies for pointing me to an interesting paper on: 'Social touch and human development' by Cascio, C., Moore, D. & McGlone, F. in the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, (2019, vol 35, p.5-11).

In this paper the authors talk about how sociable physical contact 'is a powerful force in human development, shaping social reward, attachment, cognitive, communication, and emotional regulation from infancy and throughout life'. So, already I am interested, although this claim probably sounds very plausible (bleeding obvious) to most of the people reading this blog. 

However, when getting into the main part of the paper the authors go on to discuss issues such as there being two different touch systems (or 'sub-modalities' of touch) that mediate between 'affective touch' and 'discriminative touch', and how 'factors such as culture, personal relationships, setting, gender, and other contextual influences are also important in defining and interpreting social touch'. They also note how touch can be 'associated with immediate reductions in both behavioural and psychological response to stress'.

Without copying (or 'referencing' as I like to call it) the entire paper, I thought I might point to some of the issues accounted for in the paper's conclusions, where the authors state that:

• The 'developmental nature' of social touch is 'dynamic, integrative, and firmly rooted in reward learning processes that shape the developing brain and ultimately adult behaviour'.

• 'The landscape that defines social touch changes qualitatively from an intense and primary mode for associative learning and affiliative connection in the earliest stages of pre- and neonatal life, to part of a multisensory integrated environment throughout the lifespan'.

• The 'perceptual experience' of social touch 'is in and of itself the product of several overlapping integrative processes ... [and] is paired repeatedly over time with physiological and psychological processes that invoke feelings of comfort, security, and satisfaction' (- my underlining for the purpose of extra emphasis). 

• Such overlapping, integrative neural processes 'in the central nervous system are effectors of broader neurobiological systems including oxytocin and mu-opioid systems mediating the reinforcing properties of simple and more complex social bonding' (- again, my underlining for extra emphasis). 

• Finally the authors state that these integrated 'social touch' neurobiological systems 'all interact with top-down contextual factors, including the nature of the relationships, culture, and social context, to create a highly complex, flexible platform in which the rich affective information conveyed through the skin exerts a powerful impact on behaviour ... over a lifetime' (and again, my underlining for extra emphasis).

I am sure we've* been saying much the same thing (although maybe not using all the same words like 'innervation' or 'myelinated' or 'somatosensory') for years now! 

So remember, the next time someone asks you about your use of touch as part of your Intensive Interaction practices, you can tell them all about how: 'the overlapping integrative processes ... in the central nervous system are effectors of broader neurobiological systems, including oxytocin and mu-opioid systems, mediating the reinforcing properties of simple and more complex social bonding' ... or you can just say it is one naturalistic element of the now well established Intensive interaction 'social' communication approach (see *Nind & Hewett, 1994, 'Access to Communication' p.24 - again, my underlining for extra emphasis).