EMOTION RECOGNITION AS A FUNCTION OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE AND DEPRESSED MOOD IN INDIVIDUALS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

The present study was designed to test whether social competence and m ood were predictive of the performance by adults with mild or moderate intellectual disability on a matching-to-sample task using facially e xpressed emotions as stimuli. Thirty-eight subjects were assigned to e ither a depressed mood group or a non-depressed mood group based on th eir scores on the two depression sub-scales of the Reiss Screen for Ma ladaptive Behavior. The groups were matched on sex, age and level of i ntellectual disability. Each group consisted of 10 women and nine men; 12 participants in each group had mild and seven had moderate intelle ctual disability, respectively. Social competence was assessed with th e Social Performance Survey Schedule (SPSS). Performance on the matchi ng-to-sample task correlated positively with the subjects' level of in tellectual disability, their mood scores and the scores on the Appropr iate Skills sub-scale of the SPSS. The implications of these findings for social skills training programmes and limitations of this study ar e discussed.