Exploring Remedial Training for Prosopagnosia in Children

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a neurodevelopmental condition, sometimes called face blindness, that results in severe face recognition problems due to the visual mechanisms for face processing having failed to develop. It occurs in the absence of visual impairment or brain injury. Individuals with DP can experience profound negative psychosocial consequences including anxiety, embarrassment and social isolation. The inability of children with DP (CDP) to recognise caregivers also has important safety implications. The condition is under-researched with only three published studies of attempts to improve face recognition in CDP. My research addresses this gap and will, for the first time, directly compare two different approaches to improving face recognition.

Poor face recognition might result from difficulty in telling faces apart (a perceptual problem) or from poor memory for faces (or both). Training interventions will therefore target these different underlying deficits; remedial training aims to improve face perception and compensatory training aims to improve memory for faces using work arounds. Counterbalancing treatment order will allow comparison of their relative effectiveness. Participants will be twelve CDP aged 7-16 and twelve typically developing controls.