EMOTIONAL ROLE-TAKING ABILITIES OF CHILDREN WITH A PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED

Seven to 12-year-old children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) were compared with normal, healthy ch ildren of the same age and sex on three different emotional role-takin g tasks. In these tasks, children had to use person-specific informati on to make an inference about another child's emotional reaction and b ehaviour, Significant differences were found between the PDDNOS group and control group: PDDNOS children performed worse on all three role-t aking tasks. However, the differences on one of these tasks could be c ompletely explained by intelligence differences between the two groups . On the other tasks, differences could not or be partially explained by intelligence differences. The results of this study led to the form ulation of a more specific hypothesis, namely that PDDNOS children mig ht have problems interpreting social information when affectively char ged background information has to be used.