Recognition of Facial Expressions of Six Emotions by Children with Specific Language Impairment

Over the past several years, research has shown that children with language impairment often have increased social difficulties. The purpose of this study was to take a closer look at the relationship between language ability and emotion understanding by examining the recognition of facial expressions in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typically developing peers. As such, this study is a follow-up investigation of the work done by Spackman, Fujiki, Brinton, Nelson, & Allen (2006). Children with SLI and their age- and gender-matched peers were asked to identify the following six facial expressions of emotion in a language-minimal manner: happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, and disgust. Group performance was then compared for each of the emotions examined. This study found significant differences between the groups (SLI vs. typical), with the children without language impairment performing better than those with SLI. There was also a significant difference found for emotion, indicating that some emotions were identified more correctly than others. No significant effects were found for gender, nor were any interaction effects between variables found.

Name thesis:degree_name

MS

Grantor dc:publisher

Brigham Young University - Provo

Author dc:creator

• Atwood, Kristen Diane

• language impairment
• facial expressions
• emotion
• Communication Sciences and Disorders

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/738

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-1737