Despite the important social functions of moral emotions, they are understudied in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. This three-wave longitudinal study is among the first to examine... Show moreDespite the important social functions of moral emotions, they are understudied in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. This three-wave longitudinal study is among the first to examine the development of moral emotions and their associations with theory of mind in 3- to 7-year-old children with ASD, using observational tasks. One hundred and forty-two children (52 with ASD) were followed over a period of 2 years. We found that while the expressions of shame and guilt remained stable in non-ASD children, they decreased with age in children with ASD. No group differences were found in the levels or the developmental trajectories of pride. Besides, better false-belief understanding was uniquely related to the expressions of pride in children with ASD. Our findings highlight the importance of enhancing understanding of moral emotion development and related factors in children with ASD. Show less
For deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children living in an environment where their access to linguistic input and social interactions is compromised, learning emotions could be difficult, which may... Show moreFor deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children living in an environment where their access to linguistic input and social interactions is compromised, learning emotions could be difficult, which may further affect social functioning. To understand the role of emotion in DHH children's social life, this study investigated emotional functioning (i.e., emotion recognition, empathy, emotion expression), and its relation with social functioning (i.e., social competence and externalizing behaviors), in 55 DHH children and 74 children with typical hearing (aged 3-10 years; M-age = 6.04). Parental reports on children's emotional and social functioning and factors related to DHH children's hearing were collected. Results showed similar levels of emotional and social functioning in children with and without hearing loss. Use of auditory intervention and speech perception did not correlate with any measures in DHH children. In both groups, higher levels of empathy related to higher social competence and fewer externalizing behaviors; emotion recognition and positive emotion expression were unrelated to either aspect of social functioning. Higher levels of negative emotion expression related to lower social competence in both groups, but to more externalizing behaviors in DHH children only. DHH children in less linguistically accessible environments may not have adequate knowledge for appropriately expressing negative emotions socially. Show less
Empathy enables people to share, understand, and show concern for others' emotions. However, this capacity may be more difficult to acquire for children with hearing loss, due to limited social... Show moreEmpathy enables people to share, understand, and show concern for others' emotions. However, this capacity may be more difficult to acquire for children with hearing loss, due to limited social access, and the effect of hearing on empathic maturation has been unexplored. This four-wave longitudinal study investigated the development of empathy in children with and without hearing loss, and how this development is associated with early symptoms of psychopathology. Seventy-one children with hearing loss and cochlear implants (CI), and 272 typically-hearing (TH) children, participated (aged 1-5 years at Time 1). Parents rated their children's empathic skills (affective empathy, attention to others' emotions, prosocial actions, and emotion acknowledgment) and psychopathological symptoms (internalizing and externalizing behaviors). Children with CI and TH children were rated similarly on most of the empathic skills. Yet, fewer prosocial actions were reported in children with CI than in TH children. In both groups, affective empathy decreased with age, while prosocial actions and emotion acknowledgment increased with age and stabilized when children entered primary schools. Attention to emotions increased with age in children with CI, yet remained stable in TH children. Moreover, higher levels of affective empathy, lower levels of emotion acknowledgment, and a larger increase in attention to emotions over time were associated with more psychopathological symptoms in both groups. These findings highlight the importance of social access from which children with CI can learn to process others' emotions more adaptively. Notably, interventions for psychopathology that tackle empathic responses may be beneficial for both groups, alike. Show less
Empathy is assumed to be a universal human motivation to act altruistically toward others. Developmental models of empathy explaining when and how children acquire the capacity to empathize have... Show moreEmpathy is assumed to be a universal human motivation to act altruistically toward others. Developmental models of empathy explaining when and how children acquire the capacity to empathize have been proposed. However, the existing knowledge is largely built upon studies conducted in the Western context. To fill this gap, a cross-culturally validated measure of empathy for children is needed. The purpose of this study was to assess the Japanese version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue), a parent-reported measure of empathy in preschool children, including its construct validity, measurement invariance across genders, and reliability. A total of 550 children aged 1-6 years participated in this study (M (age) = 4.17 years, SD = 1.21). Their mothers completed the Japanese EmQue. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the hypothesized three-factor structure (emotional contagion, attention to others' feelings, and prosocial actions) in the 13-item Japanese EmQue. The internal consistencies of the three scales were high. Measurement invariance across gender groups was also supported. Overall, the results demonstrate that the Japanese EmQue is a reliable and valid measure of the empathy of Japanese preschool children. It can serve as a tool in future studies to elucidate the role of culture in shaping empathy in early childhood. Show less
Objectives: For children to understand the emotional behavior of others, the first two steps involve emotion encoding and emotion interpreting, according to the Social Information Processing model.... Show moreObjectives: For children to understand the emotional behavior of others, the first two steps involve emotion encoding and emotion interpreting, according to the Social Information Processing model. Access to daily social interactions is prerequisite to a child acquiring these skills, and barriers to communication such as hearing loss impede this access. Therefore, it could be challenging for children with hearing loss to develop these two skills. The present study aimed to understand the effect of prelingual hearing loss on children's emotion understanding, by examining how they encode and interpret nonverbal emotional cues in dynamic social situations. Design: Sixty deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children and 71 typically hearing (TH) children (3-10 years old, mean age 6.2 years, 54% girls) watched videos of prototypical social interactions between a target person and an interaction partner. At the end of each video, the target person did not face the camera, rendering their facial expressions out of view to participants. Afterward, participants were asked to interpret the emotion they thought the target person felt at the end of the video. As participants watched the videos, their encoding patterns were examined by an eye tracker, which measured the amount of time participants spent looking at the target person's head and body and at the interaction partner's head and body. These regions were preselected for analyses because they had been found to provide cues for interpreting people's emotions and intentions. Results: When encoding emotional cues, both the DHH and TH children spent more time looking at the head of the target person and at the head of the interaction partner than they spent looking at the body or actions of either person. Yet, compared with the TH children, the DHH children looked at the target person's head for a shorter time (b = -0.03, p = 0.030), and at the target person's body (b = 0.04, p = 0.006) and at the interaction partner's head (b = 0.03, p = 0.048) for a longer time. The DHH children were also less accurate when interpreting emotions than their TH peers (b = -0.13, p = 0.005), and their lower scores were associated with their distinctive encoding pattern. Conclusions: The findings suggest that children with limited auditory access to the social environment tend to collect visually observable information to compensate for ambiguous emotional cues in social situations. These children may have developed this strategy to support their daily communication. Yet, to fully benefit from such a strategy, these children may need extra support for gaining better social-emotional knowledge. Show less
Tsou, Y.; Li, B.; Kret, M.E.; Costa Inês, S. da; Rieffe, C.J. 2020
In a social environment composed mostly of people with typical hearing, deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children experience social interactions differently from their typically hearing (TH) peers,... Show moreIn a social environment composed mostly of people with typical hearing, deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children experience social interactions differently from their typically hearing (TH) peers, which could guide them towards different patterns for processing other people’s emotions. This thesis aimed to unravel whether hearing status affects how children encode, interpret, and react to others’ emotions in a social context, and whether their responses are associated with psychosocial functioning, using a variety of measures that included eye tracking, pupillometry, behavioral tasks, parent reports, and longitudinal follow-up. DHH children’s skills for perceiving others’ basic emotions were on par with their TH peers. Improved emotional functioning was associated with improved psychosocial functioning to a similar degree in DHH and TH children alike. Yet, DHH children still faced difficulties when they had to process an emotion with adequate knowledge about social rules and causes of emotions. Moreover, DHH children used a visual cue-based encoding strategy to compensate for ambiguous or unavailable information in social situations, and recruited more cognitive resources to process unfamiliar emotional expressions. The findings underscore the need to look into possible qualitative differences between typical and atypical development. These individual differences reflect compensatory strategies to support daily living, or signal a need for support in a certain domain. Show less
