Preschoolers’ free play : connections with emotional and social functioning

Play has an important role in various aspects of children’s development. However, time for free play has declined substantially over the last decades. To date, few studies have focused on the relationship between opportunities for free play and children’s social functioning. The aims of this study are to examine whether children´s free play is related to their social functioning and whether this relationship is mediated by children´s emotional functioning. Seventy-eight children (age, 55- 77 months) were tested on their theory of mind and emotion understanding. Parents reported on their children’s time for free play, empathic abilities, social competence and externalizing behaviors. The main findings showed that free play and children’s theory of mind are negatively related to externalizing behaviors. Empathy was strongly related to children’s social competence, but free play and social competence were not associated. Less time for free play is related to more disruptive behaviors in preschool children, however certain emotional functioning skills influence these behaviors independently of the time children have for free play. These outcomes suggest that free play might help to prevent the development of disruptive behaviors, but future studies should further examine the causality of this relationship.peer-reviewe

Inovações no estudo do comportamento das crianças com sensores de proximidade

A possibilidade de recolha contínua de dados massivos através de dispositivos digitais está a mudar a forma como estudamos o comportamento e o desenvolvimento da criança. Neste trabalho apresentamos um método inovador de mensuração que permite recolher e analisar de forma contínua e simultânea as dinâmicas de interação face-a-face, através de sensores de proximidade baseados em dispositivos de Identificação por Rádio-Frequência (RFID). Os sensores foram usados por 72 crianças (44 rapazes) de um Jardim de Infância com idades compreendidas entre os 53 e os 77 meses (M=63.2±4.9). O objetivo foi caracterizar os padrões de interação estabelecidos no recreio exterior em termos dos tempos médios em interação, da preferência por interações mediante o género do par e da preferência por interações em díade ou em grupo. As potencialidades e as limitações deste método de recolha e análise são discutidas na perspetiva do estudo do desenvolvimento da criança

Monitoring children’s behaviors in their natural settings: Applying RFID sensors to study child development

Children’s social interactions are crucial for healthy and adaptive social and emotional development. Free play situations, like the school break, represent an important opportunity for children as they learn how to negotiate, take their losses, be a part of a group, and not stand alone. Yet how to measure children’s social interactions in groups outside or at large playgrounds? Traditionally, questionnaires and observations are used in order to gain a systematic insight into children’s social behavior when they move around in groups; however, these methods can be both unreliable and intrusive. To increase the construct validity of these measures, we have applied a new method to follow children’s dynamics at the playground, using radio frequency identification devices (RFID). In this case, we describe how this method works, what it can measure, how it adds to current methods, and the limitations of each of these measures (questionnaires, observations, and RFID sensors). Finally, we give suggestions for the use of RFID sensors and for further development in this area

Een autisme-vriendelijke school:Architectuur als eerste stap

Sinds 2017 is het in Nederland wettelijk verplicht dat elk gebouw met een publieke functie voor iedereen toegankelijk is. Echter, de barrières die schoolgaande leerlingen met autisme dagelijks ondervinden zijn vaak onzichtbaar, zoals teveel geluid, te fel licht, onduidelijke routes, te weinig zitplekken tijdens pauzes en een gebrek aan rustige of stille ruimtes. Autisme-vriendelijke architectuur streeft ernaar dat autistische leerlingen zich vrij kunnen bewegen, zich veilig en welkom voelen, en niet overprikkeld raken door de omgeving, zodat ook zij graag naar school gaan en met medeleerlingen kunnen socialiseren op momenten die daarvoor geschikt zijn. Om dit ideaal na te streven, beschrijven we in dit artikel een aantal aspecten vanuit architectonisch perspectief, zoals akoestiek en licht, toegewezen functies en gebieden, overgangszones en het schoolplein. Het creëren van een autisme-vriendelijke school begint bij de juiste architectuur van de fysieke ruimte, waarbij men zich moet realiseren dat alle leerlingen profijt hebben van de benodigde verbeteringen in de fysieke omgeving

Being Deaf in Mainstream Schools: The Effect of a Hearing Loss in Children’s Playground Behaviors

Naturalistic playground observations are a rich source of information when studying the social interactions of preschool children. On the playground, children can interact with their peers, explore different places and activities, and engage in different types of play. For deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, interactions at a playground can be more difficult because of the large number of auditory stimuli surrounding them. Constraints in the access to the social world on the playground might hamper DHH children’s interactions with their typically hearing (TH) peers, activities, and play. This pilot study aimed to examine the playground behaviors of preschool DHH children across three aspects: social levels, type of activities, and play choices. For this purpose, 12 preschool DHH children were observed during recess time, and their behaviors were coded and compared to their 85 TH peers. The preliminary findings indicate that DHH children spend less time in social interactions compared to their TH peers and that they still face difficulties when socially engaging with their TH peers. These findings suggest that interventions should focus on three aspects: the physical environment awareness of TH peers about communicating with DHH children, and the use of exercise play to facilitate social interactions between DHH children and their TH peers

Short report:Longitudinal study on emotion understanding in children with and without developmental language disorder

Background: Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have difficult access to social interactions, which could in turn limit their opportunities to learn about others’ emotions. Aims: This study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectories of emotion understanding in young children with and without DLD. Methods and procedures: 95 DLD children and 149 non-DLD children were tested twice, with an approximately two-year interval (Mage = 3.58 years at Time 1), on three indices for emotion understanding (discrimination, identification, and attribution in emotion-evoking situations). Outcomes and results: At Time 2, DLD children fell behind their non-DLD peers on the non-verbal task for emotion discrimination, while catching up on the verbal tasks for emotion identification and attribution. The two groups developed most of these skills with a similar improvement over time, but DLD children showed a greater increase in positive emotion identification and attribution with age than non-DLD children. Conclusions and implications: The findings showed the potential of DLD children to understand others’ emotions in verbal tasks to a similar extent as their non-DLD peers. However, DLD children may still face difficulties understanding more implicit emotional messages in real-life situations, and longitudinal follow-ups are required to reveal these challenges.</p

Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children

In order to broaden the alexithymia concept, we identified six aspects in a newly developed questionnaire for children which aims to measure emotion awareness: Differentiating Emotions, Verbal Sharing of Emotions, Bodily Awareness, Acting Out Emotions, Analyses of Emotions, and Others? Emotions. First, the six-factor structure of this Emotion Awareness Questionnaire was identified in children (692 children, 9-16 years old), although the scale Acting Out Emotions showed poor psychometric properties. Second, the predictive validity of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire showed promise with respect to self-reported somatic complaints (in samples from two different countries, the UK and the Netherlands), depression and worry. Only Acting Out Emotions did not contribute to any of the criterion variables whilst Bodily Awareness and Others? Emotions contributed in the unexpected direction. It is proposed that the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire could help to identify which specific elements of emotional (dys)functioning are related to different kinds of psychological problems

The early development of emotion recognition in autistic children:Decoding basic emotions from facial expressions and from emotion-provoking situations

Autism is associated with challenges in emotion recognition. Yet, little is known about how emotion recognition develops over time in autistic children. This four-wave longitudinal study followed the development of three emotion-recognition abilities regarding four basic emotions in children with and without autism aged 2.5 to 6 years over three years. Behavioral tasks were used to examine whether children could differentiate facial expressions (emotion differentiation), identify facial expressions with verbal labels (emotion identification), and attribute emotions to emotion-provoking situations (emotion attribution). We confirmed previous findings that autistic children experienced more difficulties in emotion recognition than non-autistic children and the group differences were present already from the preschool age. However, the group differences were observed only when children processed emotional information from facial expressions. When emotional information could be deduced from situational cues, most group differences disappeared. Furthermore, this study provided novel longitudinal evidence that emotion recognition improved with age in autistic children: compared to non-autistic children, autistic children showed similar learning curves in emotion discrimination and emotion attribution, and they showed greater improvements in emotion identification. We suggest that inclusion and respect in an environment free of stereotyping are likely to foster the development of emotion recognition among autistic children.</p