Emotion recognition by children with Down syndrome

In three studies, children with Down syndrome were presented with emotion r ecognition tasks designed to tap their knowledge of simple emotions, their ability to label emotions, and their understanding of emotions from simple, story-based contexts. Results indicate that young children with Down syndr ome perform similarly to typical controls matched on MAs of approximately 3 years. However, by developmental age of 4 years, children with Down syndro me performed worse than both MA-matched typical children and children with non-Down syndrome types of mental retardation. Although the MAs of children with Down syndrome increased over 2-years, their emotion recognition abili ties did not. Taken together, findings suggest both etiological and develop mental differences in the emotion recognition abilities of children with Do wn syndrome.