THE DEVELOPMENT OF DECODING OF EMOTIONS IN CHILDREN WITH EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIORAL DISTURBANCES AND THEIR NORMALLY DEVELOPING PEERS

This investigation examined children's capacity to decode verbal and n onverbal emotional stimuli. Children with externalizing behavioral sym ptoms were compared to two types of controls, including chronically il l and normally developing children. Children were requested to identif y whether video scenes were happy, angry, sad, or neural, across four different modalities including verbal, prosody, facial, and combined. Findings were that chronological age was a significant predictor of ch ildren's ability to decode emotions with older children having better developed abilities than their younger peers. Verbal intelligence also was found to be a significant predictor of the ability to decode faci al expressions and combined scenes. Although the data did not support the original hypothesis that children with externalizing behavior diso rders would be less accurate than controls in the decoding of emotions , findings did support a developmental progression of decoding accurac y. Recommendations within the limitations of the study design are prov ided which support a developmental framework in children's acquisition of the decoding of emotions. (C) 1998 National Academy of Neuropsycho logy. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.