COMPREHENSION AND EXPRESSION OF AFFECT IN LANGUAGE-IMPAIRED CHILDREN

Eight children with developmental language impairment (LI) and eight a ge-, sex-, socioeconomic-status-, and I.Q.-matched controls were given tests of comprehension and expression of affective intent in spoken l anguage and through facial expression. The LI children performed signi ficantly more poorly than did controls in both comprehension and spont aneous expression of vocal affect. On tasks involving emotional facial expression, the opposite results were observed. The LI children were more dramatic in their expression of facial affect than were the contr ols. Children with language impairment appear to have a deficit in aff ective comprehension and expression that is modality-specific, i.e., l imited to vocal affect. The heightened range of affective facial expre ssion that they demonstrate may be a compensatory mechanism to offset their difficulties with vocal affect.