Children's emotion understanding: A meta-analysis of training studies.

BACKGROUND: In the course of development, children show increased insight and understanding of emotions-both of their own emotions and those of others. However, little is known about the efficacy of training programs aimed at improving children's understanding of emotion. OBJECTIVES: To conduct an effect size analysis of trainings aimed at three aspects of emotion understanding: external aspects (i.e., the recognition of emotional expressions, understanding external causes of emotion, understanding the influence of reminders on present emotions); mental aspects (i.e., understanding desire-based emotions, understanding belief-based emotions, understanding hidden emotions); and reflective aspects (i.e., understanding the regulation of an emotion, understanding mixed emotions, understanding moral emotions). DATA SOURCES: A literature search was conducted using PubMed, PsycInfo, the Cochrane Library, and manual searches. REVIEW METHODS: The search identified 19 studies or experiments including a total of 749 children with an average age of 86 months (S.D.=30.71) from seven different countries. RESULTS: Emotion understanding training procedures are effective for improving external (Hedge's g = 0.62), mental (Hedge's g = 0.31), and reflective (Hedge's g = 0.64) aspects of emotion understanding. These effect sizes were robust and generally unrelated to the number and lengths of training sessions, length of the training period, year of publication, and sample type. However, training setting and social setting moderated the effect of emotion understanding training on the understanding of external aspects of emotion. For the length of training session and social setting, we observed significant moderator effects of training on reflective aspects of emotion. CONCLUSION: Emotion understanding training may be a promising tool for both preventive intervention and the psychotherapeutic process. However, more well-controlled studies are needed.R34 MH086668 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01 AT007257 - NCCIH NIH HHS; R21 MH101567 - NIMH NIH HHS; R34 MH099311 - NIMH NIH HHS; R21 MH102646 - NIMH NIH HHS; K23 MH100259 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01 MH099021 - NIMH NIH HH

Contrasting disease patterns in seropositive and seronegative neuromyelitis optica: A multicentre study of 175 patients

BACKGROUND: The diagnostic and pathophysiological relevance of antibodies to aquaporin-4 (AQP4-Ab) in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) has been intensively studied. However, little is known so far about the clinical impact of AQP4-Ab seropositivity. OBJECTIVE: To analyse systematically the clinical and paraclinical features associated with NMO spectrum disorders in Caucasians in a stratified fashion according to the patients' AQP4-Ab serostatus. METHODS: Retrospective study of 175 Caucasian patients (AQP4-Ab positive in 78.3%). RESULTS: Seropositive patients were found to be predominantly female (p 1 myelitis attacks in the first year were identified as possible predictors of a worse outcome. CONCLUSION: This study provides an overview of the clinical and paraclinical features of NMOSD in Caucasians and demonstrates a number of distinct disease characteristics in seropositive and seronegative patients

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