Anger communication in deaf children

In this study, we investigated how deaf children express their anger towards peers and with what intentions. Eleven-year-old deaf children (n = 21) and a hearing control group (n = 36) were offered four vignettes describing anger-evoking conflict situations with peers. Children were asked how they would respond, how the responsible peer would react, and what would happen to their relationship. Deaf children employed the communicative function of anger expression differently from hearing children. Whereas hearing children used anger expression to reflect on the anguish that another child caused them, deaf children used it rather bluntly and explained less. Moreover, deaf children expected less empathic responses from the peer causing them harm. Both groups did, however, expect equally often that the relationship with the peer would stay intact. These findings are discussed in the light of deaf children's impaired emotion socialization secondary to their limited communication skills

Deaf children's use of beliefs and desires in negotiation

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's negotiation strategies in false-belief situations, because situations that require negotiation provide a natural context with a clear motivational aspect, which might appeal more strongly to deaf children's false-belief reasoning capacities. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of 11- to 12-year-old deaf and hearing children to scenarios in which a mother, who is unaware of a change in the situation, threatens to block the fulfillment of the child's desire. The results showed that deaf children more often failed to correct the mother's false beliefs. In contrast with hearing children, who frequently left their own desires implicit, deaf children kept stressing their desires as a primary argument, even though the mother could be expected to be fully aware of these desires. Moral claims were used to the same extent by both groups. In general, deaf children more often used arguments that did not provide new information for their conversation partners, including repetitions of the same argument. The results were interpreted in terms of the special needs that are required by the hampered communication between deaf and hearing people as well as in terms of the ongoing discussion regarding theory-of-mind development in deaf children

Understanding atypical emotions among children with autism

Children with autism are said to be poor mind readers: They have a limited understanding of the role that mental states play in determining emotions and behavior. In this research, 23 high-functioning children from the autistic spectrum (M age 9 years 3 months), 42 6-year-old controls, and 43 10-year-old controls were presented with six emotion-evoking stories and they were asked to explain protagonists' typical and atypical emotions. In the case of typical emotions, as expected on the basis of the mindblind hypothesis, children from the autistic spectrum gave few mental state explanations, referring to fewer than even the 6-year-old control group. However, in the case of atypical emotions, the autistic group performed as well as the 10-year-old controls. Their explanations for the atypical emotions demonstrate that children from the autistic spectrum indeed have the capacity to mind read (with respect to both desires and beliefs), although they do not always use this capacity in the same way as normally developing children. It is argued that the mind-reading capacity of high-functioning children from the autistic spectrum might be basically intact; unused in everyday circumstances but not necessarily defective

Reasons why patients by-pass their GP to visit a hospital Emergency Department.

Knowledge about what motivates patients to visit the emergency department (ED) of a hospital for minor complaints, instead of visiting their general practitioner (GP), can help to reduce unnecessary utilization of expensive services. This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the reasons why patients visit the ED and to determine the influence of patient characteristics on specific motives. A multidimensional measurement instrument was designed to identify the motives of patients who bypass their GP and visit the ED. The instrument assessed 21 motives, all measured by means of three questions in Likert format. During a period of 1 week, all patients who visited the ED of two hospitals in Amsterdam were asked to complete a questionnaire when they were 'self-referred' with minor complaints. A total of 403 questionnaires were analysed, and the results show that motives relating to the GP play a minor role in the decision of patients to visit the ED. Profiles of two major patient groups could be identified. One group comprised patients with a high socio-economic status living in suburbs, whose motives for visiting the ED are mainly of a financial nature. Patients in the second group mainly lived in the inner-city, and preferred the expertise and facilities provided by the ED

Attention to facial emotion expressions in children with autism

High-functioning children in the autism spectrum are frequently noted for their impaired attention to facial expressions of emotions. In this study, we examined whether attention to emotion cues in others could be enhanced in children with autism, by varying the relevance of children's attention to emotion expressions. Twenty-eight high-functioning boys with autism and 31 boys from a control group were asked to sort photos depicting smiling or frowning faces of adults. As found in earlier studies, in neutral conditions children with autism were less attentive to emotion expressions than children from a control group. This difference disappeared when children were explicitly asked to make a socially relevant decision. These findings suggest that the attention of children with autism to emotion expressions in others is influenced by situational factors. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. © 2006 SAGE Publications and The National Autistic Society

Do parents reinforce somatic complaints in their children?

OBJECTIVE: To examine the influence of parental solicitousness on self-reported somatic complaints in school-age children. DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants were 564 children (mean age 10 years) and their parents. Children completed self-report measures of somatic complaints, parental solicitousness, depressiveness, fear, and sense of coherence. Somatic complaints were assessed again 6 months later. Parents also completed a questionnaire about solicitousness. RESULTS: Parental solicitousness as reported by children or parents was unrelated to the frequency of self-reported somatic complaints. Symptoms of depression, fear, and lower sense of coherence were associated with more somatic complaints, but did not interact with parental solicitousness. CONCLUSION: Parental solicitousness seems unrelated to more frequent somatic complaints in schoolchildren

Bidirectional relationships between bullying, victimization and emotion experience in boys with and without autism

Adolescents with autism are more often victims of bullying than peers without autism. Although prior work indicates that emotions play an important role, bidirectional relationships are yet unknown. This study examines the longitudinal associations of anger, fear, guilt and shame with being victimized and bullying others in adolescent boys with and without autism. On three occasions (9 months in between) 169 boys (43% with autism, 11.6 years at T1) completed self-reports.Findings show that more anger and less guilt predicted bullying behaviour, and vice versa, in both groups. In addition, more anger and fear predicted victimization. Fear was a stronger predictor in boys without autism. In turn, victimization predicted more anger, fear and shame. Especially, boys with autism reported more anger after being bullied, suggesting a tenacious vicious circle: these youngsters are likely to be angered when being bullied, which, in turn, makes them a target for bullies. Our findings provide new theoretical insights in the role emotions play in the emergence and maintenance of victimization/bullying others in boys with and without autism.Pathways through Adolescenc

Preschoolers appreciation of uncommon desires and subsequent emotions

Many theory of mind researchers have argued that even preschoolers understand the causal relationship between desires and emotions: the fulfilment of a desire results in a positive emotion, whereas its frustration elicits a negative emotion. Children can acknowledge this simple link between desires and emotions, even when their own desire differs from that of the story protagonist. However, in this paper we argue that under some conditions preschool children will not base their emotion predictions for another person on the basis of the other person's desires. In the first experiment, 3-to 5-year-old children were tested for their understanding of desires, when the protagonist's desire for a snack increasingly conflicted with their own preference for a snack. Only the 4-year-olds performed as expected: they gave more accurate emotion predictions when the distance between their own preference and the protagonist's desire was reduced. When the snacks were replaced by toys, however, preschool children showed a bias in their emotion predictions that seemed gender related. The second experiment confirmed that sex-stereotyped beliefs about desirability biased children's predictions of others' emotions: 4- and 5-year-old children were more accurate in their predictions when the protagonist had a traditional desire (a girl wanting to play with a doll), than when the protagonist had a non-traditional desire (a boy wanting to play with a doll), irrespective of children's own preferences for one toy over the other. In sum, evidence was found for two biasing influences in children's understanding of others' emotions: (1) an increased distance between the protagonist's desire and participants' own desires, and (2) beliefs about desirability based on, for example, cultural-norms for gender related preferences, which increases with age

Depression and social anxiety in children: Differential links with coping strategies

Background: Strategies that children use for coping with stressors are known to be related to emotional adjustment, but not enough is understood about specific links with social anxiety and depression. The present investigation tested differentiated associations of social anxiety and depression with specific types of coping strategies, and evaluated the direction of these associations over time. Methods: In Study 1, 404 children aged 8-13 years completed a coping scale modified from Kochenderfer-Ladd and Skinner (2002) in order to evaluate factor structure and subscale internal consistency. In Study 2, 270 8-11-year-old children completed depression and social anxiety scales, a sociometric survey, and the coping scale from Study 1, with a follow-up timepoint 9 months later. Results: In Study 1, factor analysis revealed six internally consistent coping subscales. In Study 2, social anxiety and depression were found to have distinctive longitudinal associations with subsequent coping strategies. Decreased problem-solving, social support-seeking, and distraction were uniquely predicted by depression but not by social anxiety. Internalising coping was a stronger outcome of social anxiety, and increased externalising was uniquely predicted by depression. There was also some evidence for a moderating role of peer relations. However, none of the coping strategies predicted changes in depression or social anxiety over the two timepoints. Conclusions: These results highlight the impact that emotional adjustment may have on childrens coping strategies, and clarify important distinctions between social anxiety and depression in relation to coping. Keywords: social anxiety, depression, coping, peer relations, longitudina