Are language and social communication intact in children with congenital visual impairment at school age?

Background:  Development of children with congenital visual impairment (VI) has been associated with vulnerable socio-communicative outcomes often bearing striking similarities to those of sighted children with autism.1 To date, very little is known about language and social communication in children with VI of normal intelligence. Methods:  We examined the presentation of language and social communication of 15 children with VI and normal-range verbal intelligence, age 6–12 years, using a standardised language assessment and parental reports of everyday social and communicative behaviours. Their profiles were compared to those of typically developing sighted children of similar age and verbal ability. Results:  Compared to their sighted peers, and relative to their own good and potentially superior structural language skills, children with VI showed significantly poorer use of language for social purposes. Pragmatic language weaknesses were a part of a broader socio-communicative profile of difficulties, present in a substantial proportion of these children and consistent with the pattern found in sighted children with autism. Conclusions:  There are ongoing socio-communicative and pragmatic language difficulties in children with congenital VI at school age, despite their good intellectual abilities and advanced linguistic skills. Further research is required to unpack the underlying causes and factors maintaining this vulnerability in such children

Story discourse and use of mental state language between mothers and school-aged children with and without visual impairment

Background: Lack of sight compromises insight into other people's mental states. Little is known about the role of maternal language in assisting the development of mental state language in children with visual impairment (VI). Aims: To investigate mental state language strategies of mothers of school‐aged children with VI and to compare these with mothers of comparable children with typically developing vision. To investigate whether the characteristics of mother–child discourse were associated with the child's socio‐communicative competence. Methods & Procedures: Mother–child discourse with twelve 6–12‐year‐old children with VI was coded during a shared book‐reading narrative and compared with 14 typically sighted children matched in age and verbal ability. Outcomes & Results: Mothers of children with VI elaborated more and made significantly more references to story characters’ mental states and descriptive elaborations than mothers of sighted children. Mental state elaborations of mothers in the VI group related positively with the level produced by their children, with the association remaining after mothers’ overall verbosity and children's developmental levels were controlled for. Frequency of maternal elaborations, including their mental state language, was related to socio‐communicative competence of children with VI. Conclusions & Implications: The findings offer insights into the potential contribution of maternal verbal scaffolding to mentalistic language and social–communicative competences of children with VI

Emotion production of facial expressions: A comparison of deaf and hearing children

© 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2021.106113The production of facial expressions is an important skill that allows children to share and adapt emotions during social interactions. While deaf children are reported to show delays in their social and emotion understanding, the way in which they produce facial expressions of emotions has been relatively unexplored. The present study investigated the production of facial expressions of emotions by young congenitally deaf children. Six facial expressions of emotions produced by 5 congenitally deaf children and 5 hearing children (control group) were filmed across three tasks: 1) voluntarily posed expression of emotion 2) responding to social stories 3) intentionally mimicking expressions of emotion. The recorded videos were analysed using a software based of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), and then judged by adult raters using two different scales: according to the emotion elicited (i.e. accuracy) and the intensity of the emotion produced. Results using both measurement scales showed that all children (deaf and hearing) were able to produce socially recognisable prototypical configuration of facial expressions. However, the deaf children were rated by as adults as expressing their emotions with greater intensity compared to the hearing children. The results suggest deaf children may show more exaggerated facial expressions of emotion, possibly to avoid any ambiguity in communicationPeer reviewe