Social-emotional Understanding Research Articles

Validation of factor structure of the neurodevelopmental parent report for outcome monitoring in down syndrome: confirmatory factor analysis.

The Neurodevelopmental Parent Report for Outcome Monitoring (ND-PROM), initially developed to monitor developmental and behavioral functions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), assesses symptoms across a wide range of domains relevant in Down syndrome (DS). Psychometric properties of ND-PROM were assessed in 385 individuals with DS and 52 with a combined diagnosis of DS and ASD (DS+ASD), whose caregivers completed the ND-PROM questionnaire for a clinical visit in a specialized Down syndrome program at a tertiary pediatric hospital. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the internal structure validity of the ND-PROM. Measurement invariance was assessed, with a comparison group of 246 individuals with ASD, and latent mean differences between the DS and ASD-only groups, as well as the combined DS+ASD groups, were assessed. Findings support the existence of the 12 clinically-derived factors in the DS population: Expressive Language, Receptive Language, Adaptive skills/Toileting, Social Emotional Understanding, Social Interaction, Independent Play, Sensory Processes, Challenging Behaviors, Impulse/ADHD, and Mental Health. Differences in response patterns of development and behaviors were observed between those with DS and those with ASD, including those with DS having higher abilities in nonverbal communication, social emotional understanding, and social interaction, and fewer restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests, impulsivity or ADHD symptoms, and mental health concerns compared to those with ASD. Individuals in the DS+ASD group had more difficulties with expressive and receptive language, nonverbal and social communication, social interaction, independent play, and adaptive skills than either the DS-only group or the ASD-only groups. The ND-PROM has a desirable factor structure and is a valid and clinically useful tool that captures a range of distinct and independent areas of developmental and behavioral functioning in DS, for individuals with and without an ASD diagnosis.

Clinically derived 12-factor structure and confirmatory factor analysis of the neurodevelopmental parent report for outcome monitoring.

The ND-PROM was completed for 246 children with ASD ands tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and measurement invariance based on sex. A 12-factor correlated structure was found (expressive language, receptive language, nonverbal communication, social emotional understanding, social interaction, independent play, adaptive/toileting skills, restrictive and repetitive behaviors and interests, sensory processes, challenging behaviors, impulse/ADHD, and mental health), which did not vary by sex. The ND-PROM captures a range of distinct aspects of developmental and behavioral functioning in ASD that can be used to track independent functioning across domains.

The moderating role of spirituality and gender in Canadian and Iranian emerging adolescents' theory of mind and prosocial behavior.

While research has found a link between ToM and prosociality in terms of caring and helping others which may also vary across cultures, the moderating role of spirituality and culture of this association in emerging adolescence has received little attention. The current study empirically "examined" the role of spirituality and gender in relation to ToM and prosocial behavior in Canadian and Iranian emerging adolescents. A total of 300 (153 girls) emerging adolescents (M = 11.502, SD = 2.228) were recruited from Montreal, Canada and Karaj, Iran. A series of double moderation analysis and ANOVA was conducted. Results indicated the difference between direct and indirect influences of ToM and its interactions with culture, gender, and spirituality on prosocial behavior. This implies an emerging complex framework which suggests the dynamic nonlinear interactions between these factors. Implications for youth's social-emotional understanding will be discussed.

Associations Between Social-Emotional and Language Development in Preschool Children. Results from a Study Testing the Rationale for an Intervention

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations between social-emotional and language development in a sample of 3–5-year-old children in community-based early childhood education and care (N = 90). Children’s theory of mind understanding, affect recognition and language abilities were tested with neuropsychological measurements, and their teachers rated their behavior with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The results showed that language development was linked to the children’s social-emotional development and theory of mind ability. Furthermore, the children’s observed social-emotional skills and the neuropsychological measurements had associations with their capacity to understand and name emotions in a Teddy Bear test designed for the study. The Teddy Bear test will be developed and validated with a larger sample in a forthcoming study. The present results support the rationale for an intervention study aiming to enhance the children’s language development and their social-emotional understanding, to support the children’s social-emotional development.

Students’ experiences of reflective practices as pedagogy in early childhood higher education

ABSTRACT Early childhood education is a demanding profession, and teachers’ stress is inversely associated with the quality of their interactions with young children. In order to provide stress management tools to preservice teachers prior to entry into the field, there has been growing interest in the use of reflective practices as part of higher education pedagogy. There is initial evidence that reflective practices have the potential to positively influence preservice teachers’ well-being and teaching practice. Instructors at two universities incorporated the use of reflective practices, including journaling, in-class discussions, and mindfulness, into their early childhood courses. Students from these courses were invited to participate in focus groups regarding their experiences with the use of reflective practices as part of their course’s pedagogical approach; 21 students participated (n for Course 1 = 13, n for Course 2 = 8). Using constant comparative analysis, two primary themes emerged: 1) participants described important aspects of the process and structure of using reflective practices as part of their course, and 2) participants reported how reflective practices supported their social-emotional understanding and well-being. Implications for using reflective practices, including rich descriptions, examples, and practice suggestions, as part of early childhood higher education pedagogy are discussed.

Development and Feasibility of MindChip™: A Social Emotional Telehealth Intervention for Autistic Adults.

The study aims to develop and pilot a telehealth social emotional program, MindChip™ delivered with a computer based interventions (CBI) (Mind Reading©) for autistic adults. MindChip™ combined four theoretical perspectives and community feedback underpinning the essential mechanisms for targeting the social emotional understanding of autistic adults. A randomised pragmatic pilot trial (N = 25) was conducted to explore the feasibility of MindChip™ (n = 11) and to understand the preliminary efficacy of combining it with CBI compared to CBI only (n = 14). The use of MindChip™ and CBI combined demonstrated partial feasibility, with preliminary efficacy findings revealing increased emotion recognition generalisation outcomes compared to CBI only. Further research is required to improve the engagement and personalisation of the intervention for autistic adults.

Women with early maltreatment experience show increased resting-state functional connectivity in the theory of mind (ToM) network

ABSTRACT Background: Experience of childhood maltreatment significantly increases the risk for the development of psychopathology and is associated with impairments in socio-cognitive skills including theory-of-mind (ToM). In turn, neural alterations in ToM processing might then influence future interpersonal interaction and social-emotional understanding. Objective: To assess resting-state activity in the theory-of-mind network in traumatized and non-traumatized persons. Methods: Thirty-five women with a history of childhood maltreatment and 31 unaffected women completed a resting-state scan and a ToM localizer task. The peak coordinates from the localizer were used as the seed regions for the resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) analyses (temporo-parietal junction, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, middle temporal gyrus and precuneus). Results: Child abuse was associated with increased RSFC between various ToM regions including the precuneus and the brainstem suggesting altered hierarchical processing in ToM regions. Number of types of abuse was driving the effect for the temporo-parietal junction and the brainstem, while the severity of abuse was linked to increased RSFC between the middle temporal gyrus and the frontal cortex. Post-hoc analyses of brainstem regions indicated the involvement of the serotonergic system (dorsal raphe). Conclusions: The data indicate a lasting impact of childhood maltreatment on the neural networks involved in social information processing that are integral to understanding others’ emotional states. Indeed, such altered neural networks may account for some of the interpersonal difficulties victims of childhood maltreatment experience.

The social values development of preschoolers: An investigation of the joint impact hypothesis.

We investigated the role of sociocultural (between-groups) and individual (within-group) factors on the development of preschoolers' resource-allocation preferences. We tested claims of the joint impact hypothesis of social values development that social-emotional understanding skills would predict the transition from simpler (individualistic allocations) to more complex (cooperative, competitive allocations) social values and that cultural background would determine which values emerged. American children ages 37-67 months from Spanish-speaking Latino (n = 134), English-speaking Latino (n = 50), and English-speaking Caucasian (n = 98) backgrounds twice completed a resource-allocation task and a social-emotional understanding assessment, separated by 6 months. Contrary to predictions, results revealed that for no group were complex choice allocations more common at Time 2 than at Time 1. Moreover, for the Caucasian group, social-emotional understanding did not predict time-dependent choice allocation behavior. For Latinos, however, results revealed differential social values development according to language background. For Spanish-speaking Latinos, higher social-emotional understanding scores predicted emergent cooperative choices, and for English-speaking Latinos, higher scores predicted emergent competitive choices. Findings are consistent with differential socialization wherein social-emotional understanding skills facilitate the development of culturally mainstream values for more acculturated Latinos and ethnic cultural values for less acculturated Latinos. (PsycINFO Database Record

Thinking or feeling? An exploratory study of maternal scaffolding, child mental state talk, and emotion understanding in language-impaired and typically developing school-aged children.

Mother-child mental state talk (MST) supports children's developing social-emotional understanding. In typically developing (TD) children, family conversations about emotion, cognition, and causes have been linked to children's emotion understanding. Specific language impairment (SLI) may compromise developing emotion understanding and adjustment. We investigated emotion understanding in children with SLI and TD, in relation to mother-child conversation. Specifically, is cognitive, emotion, or causal MST more important for child emotion understanding and how might maternal scaffolding support this? Nine 5- to 9-year-old children with SLI and nine age-matched typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers. We assessed children's language, emotion understanding and reported behavioural adjustment. Mother-child conversations were coded for MST, including emotion, cognition, and causal talk, and for scaffolding of causal talk. Children with SLI scored lower than TD children on emotion understanding and adjustment. Mothers in each group provided similar amounts of cognitive, emotion, and causal talk, but SLI children used proportionally less cognitive and causal talk than TD children did, and more such child talk predicted better child emotion understanding. Child emotion talk did not differ between groups and did not predict emotion understanding. Both groups participated in maternal-scaffolded causal talk, but causal talk about emotion was more frequent in TD children, and such talk predicted higher emotion understanding. Cognitive and causal language scaffolded by mothers provides tools for articulating increasingly complex ideas about emotion, predicting children's emotion understanding. Our study provides a robust method for studying scaffolding processes for understanding causes of emotion.

What Factors Drive Organizational Learning From Crisis? Insights From the Dutch Food Safety Services’ Response to Four Veterinary Crises

Although organizational learning has been studied extensively, empirical studies in relation to crises and theory building have remained scarce. This study explored what factors affect the learning process from crises of a public sector organization. We studied the responses of the Dutch food safety services (NVWA) to the veterinary crises classical swine fever (1997–1998), foot‐and‐mouth disease (2001), avian influenza (2003) and Q fever (2007–2010). Data from in‐depth interviews with key experts in the organization and from crisis management documents pointed to political–economic context, social–emotional understanding, organizational structure, organizational culture, crisis management stage and organizational forgetting as key factors. Remarkably, postcrisis evaluation reports, leadership and a shared sense‐making of what lessons to learn were not found to play a central role.

Promoting Children’s Prosocial Behaviors in School: Impact of the “Roots of Empathy” Program on the Social and Emotional Competence of School-Aged Children

This study examines the effects of the Roots of Empathy (ROE) program on children’s social-emotional competence. ROE is a theoretically derived universal preventive program that focuses on decreasing children’s aggression and facilitating the development of their social-emotional understanding and prosocial behaviors. The program has as its cornerstone monthly visits by an infant and his/her parent(s) that serve as a springboard for lessons on emotion understanding, perspective taking, caring for others, and infant development. The study included a quasi-experimental control-group pretest–posttest, multi-informant design with 585 4th- to 7th-grade children from 28 classrooms. Outcome measures included self-reports of understanding of infant distress, empathy, and perspective taking, and peer and teacher reports of prosocial and aggressive behaviors. Measures assessing implementation were also included. Children in the ROE intervention classrooms showed significant improvement across several of the domains assessed: self-reports of causes for infant crying, peer nominations of prosocial behaviors, and teacher reports of proactive and relational aggression. Self-reported empathy and perspective taking showed no significant changes. According to ROE instructors’ diaries assessing implementation, students in the experimental condition were exposed to all or most of the ROE curriculum. These findings support and extend recent research examining the positive impacts of classroom-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs on children’s social development and behavioral adjustment.

The facilitation of social-emotional understanding and social interaction in high-functioning children with autism: intervention outcomes.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 7-month cognitive behavioral intervention for the facilitation of the social-emotional understanding and social interaction of 15 high-functioning children (8 to 17 years old) with autism. Intervention focused on teaching interpersonal problem solving, affective knowledge, and social interaction. Preintervention and postintervention measures included observations of social interaction, measures of problem solving and of emotion understanding, and teacher-rated social skills. Results demonstrated progress in three areas of intervention. Children were more likely to initiate positive social interaction with peers after treatment; in particular, they improved eye contact and their ability to share experiences with peers and to show interest in peers. In problem solving after treatment, children provided more relevant solutions and fewer nonsocial solutions to different social situations. In emotional knowledge, after treatment, children provided more examples of complex emotions, supplied more specific rather then general examples, and included an audience more often in the different emotions. Children also obtained higher teacher-rated social skills scores in assertion and cooperation after treatment. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of the current model of intervention for high-functioning children with autism.

Attachment security in children with autism

AbstractNineteen autistic children were examined in a modified version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation. The attachment security of 15 children could be classified. Each of these children displayed disorganized attachment patterns, but almost half (40%) of them were subclassified as securely attached. To assess the validity of the attachment classifications, children and their mothers were observed in a separate interaction. Mothers of children who were subclassified as securely attached displayed greater sensitivity than mothers of children who were subclassified as insecurely attached. Children who were subclassified as securely attached more frequently initiated social interaction with their mothers than did children who were subclassified as insecurely attached. Children with secure and insecure subclassifications were compared to investigate correlations between attachment organization and representational ability and social-emotional understanding. Although children with underlying secure attachments were no more likely to initiate joint attention, they were more responsive to bids for joint attention, made requests more frequently, and demonstrated greater receptive language ability than children subclassified as insecurely attached. Discussion focuses on dynamics that may contribute to individual differences in the attachment organization of autistic children and on the reciprocal relationship between advances in our understanding of normal and pathological development.