scholarly journals C-64 The Verbal Shift Social Assessment: Examining Differences in Emotion Recognition, Attention, and Event Prediction Between Children with HFASD, ADHD, and Typically Developing Peers

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1093-1093
Author(s):  
T Ryan ◽  
D Wexler ◽  
A Wawrzonek ◽  
S Mahdavi ◽  
J Westdal ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective A pilot study of an experimental instrument extending the ‘verbal shift’ hypothesis indicating HFASD bias towards language over nonverbal cues (Grossman, Klin, Carter & Volkmar, 2000). We hypothesized HFASD differentiates from ADHD in social video interpretation in the degree of reliance on semantic content for correct responses. Method 68 children ages 7-13 were recruited from the community (21 HFASD, 20 ADHD, 27 Control). Children viewed video pairs of social interaction. A “masked” version preserved prosody and visual cues, but not words. An “unmasked” version was naturalistic, with interpretable spoken language. Three questions were asked following each video scene (masked presented first): 1) the emotion of an actor, 2) a question to verify child was attending, 3) prediction about what might happen next. MANCOVA with post-hoc analysis was used to examine the between-group differences on performance as measured by the number of correct responses gained when the videos were unmasked. Results There were no group differences in age, gender, and WASI PRI. With WASI VCI controlled, emotion recognition and prediction questions differed significantly between groups (F = 3.907, p = .025, pEta2 = .109; F = 4.725, p = .012, pEta2 = .129), with ASD having the largest unmasked>masked correct gain compared to ADHD (p = .05; p = .029) and controls (p = .009; p = .004) There were no differences between ADHD and controls. The attention question did not differ among groups; focus on the details of the videos was similar in participants regardless of diagnosis. Conclusions Results of this pilot study indicate that emotion recognition and event prediction may be useful diagnostic predictors when differentiating HFASD from ADHD using naturalistic video stimuli.

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-257
Author(s):  
Alexandra Basile ◽  
Maggie E. Toplak ◽  
Brendan F. Andrade

Objective: This study investigated confidence accuracy associations for emotion recognition (ER) in children with ADHD and typically developing children (TD). Method: Thirty-nine children with ADHD and 42 TD ( M = 9 years, 11 months, SD = 14.92 months, 26 females) completed an ER task. Intelligence and executive function task performance were also measured. Results: The ADHD group was more confident on ER compared with TD, but no group differences were found on their overall accuracy. Specifically, the ADHD group was more confident in its recognition of sad and angry faces compared with the TD group. On a metacognitive index, the ADHD group displayed lower resolution, suggesting that the TD group was better at discriminating correct from incorrect responses. Higher resolution was associated with lower ADHD symptoms. Conclusion: Confidence ratings with reference to performance on a specific task can provide an index of social-cognition in children with ADHD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica D. Musser ◽  
Stephanie S. J. Morris ◽  
Kathleen Feeney ◽  
Rosario Pintos Lobo ◽  
Edward F. Ester

Although inattention is a key symptom subdomain of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the mechanisms underlying this subdomain and related symptoms remain unclear. There is a need for more granular approaches that allow for greater specificity in linking disruptions in specific domains of cognitive performance (e.g., executive function and reward processing) with behavioral manifestations of ADHD. Such approaches may inform the development of more targeted therapeutic interventions. Here, we describe the results of a pilot study of elementary-aged children (ages 6–12years) with ADHD (n=50) and typically developing children (n=48) utilizing a cognitive science task designed to target two dissociable mechanisms of attentional selection: a goal-driven mechanism (i.e., reward/value-driven) and a salience-driven mechanism. Participants were asked to optimally extract and combine information about stimulus salience and value to maximize rewards. While results of this pilot study are ambiguous due to the small sample size and limited number of task trials, data suggest that neither participants with ADHD nor typically developing participants performed optimally to maximize rewards, though typically developing participants were somewhat more successful at the task (i.e., more likely to report high-value targets) regardless of task condition. Further, the manuscript examines several follow-up questions regarding group differences in task response times and group differences in task performance as related to sustained attention across the duration of the task. Finally, the manuscript examines follow-up questions related to heterogeneity in the ADHD group (i.e., age, DSM 5 presentation, and comorbid diagnosis) in predicting task performance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 795-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Short ◽  
Rachael Cooper Schindler ◽  
Rita Obeid ◽  
Maia M. Noeder ◽  
Laura E. Hlavaty ◽  
...  

Purpose Play is a critical aspect of children's development, and researchers have long argued that symbolic deficits in play may be diagnostic of developmental disabilities. This study examined whether deficits in play emerge as a function of developmental disabilities and whether our perceptions of play are colored by differences in language and behavioral presentations. Method Ninety-three children participated in this study (typically developing [TD]; n = 23, developmental language disorders [DLD]; n = 24, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]; n = 26, and autism spectrum disorder [ASD]; n = 20). Children were videotaped engaging in free-play. Children's symbolic play (imagination, organization, elaboration, and comfort) was scored under conditions of both audible language and no audible language to assess diagnostic group differences in play and whether audible language impacted raters' perception of play. Results Significant differences in play were evident across diagnostic groups. The presence of language did not alter play ratings for the TD group, but differences were found among the other diagnostic groups. When language was audible, children with DLD and ASD (but not ADHD) were scored poorly on play compared to their TD peers. When language was not audible, children with DLD were perceived to play better than when language was audible. Conversely, children with ADHD showed organizational deficits when language was not available to support their play. Finally, children with ASD demonstrated poor play performance regardless of whether language was audible or not. Conclusions Language affects our understanding of play skills in some young children. Parents, researchers, and clinicians must be careful not to underestimate or overestimate play based on language presentation. Differential skills in language have the potential to unduly influence our perceptions of play for children with developmental disabilities.


2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoinette R. Miller ◽  
J. Peter Rosenfeld

Abstract University students were screened using items from the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and divided into high (n = 13) and low (n = 11) Psychopathic Personality Trait (PPT) groups. The P300 component of the event-related potential (ERP) was recorded as each group completed a two-block autobiographical oddball task, responding honestly during the first (Phone) block, in which oddball items were participants' home phone numbers, and then feigning amnesia in response to approximately 50% of items in the second (Birthday) block in which oddball items were participants' birthdates. Bootstrapping of peak-to-peak amplitudes correctly identified 100% of low PPT and 92% of high PPT participants as having intact recognition. Both groups demonstrated malingering-related P300 amplitude reduction. For the first time, P300 amplitude and topography differences were observed between honest and deceptive responses to Birthday items. No main between-group P300 effects resulted. Post-hoc analysis revealed between-group differences in a frontally located post-P300 component. Honest responses were associated with late frontal amplitudes larger than deceptive responses at frontal sites in the low PPT group only.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana S. Cortes ◽  
Christina Tornberg ◽  
Tanja Bänziger ◽  
Hillary Anger Elfenbein ◽  
Håkan Fischer ◽  
...  

AbstractAge-related differences in emotion recognition have predominantly been investigated using static pictures of facial expressions, and positive emotions beyond happiness have rarely been included. The current study instead used dynamic facial and vocal stimuli, and included a wider than usual range of positive emotions. In Task 1, younger and older adults were tested for their abilities to recognize 12 emotions from brief video recordings presented in visual, auditory, and multimodal blocks. Task 2 assessed recognition of 18 emotions conveyed by non-linguistic vocalizations (e.g., laughter, sobs, and sighs). Results from both tasks showed that younger adults had significantly higher overall recognition rates than older adults. In Task 1, significant group differences (younger > older) were only observed for the auditory block (across all emotions), and for expressions of anger, irritation, and relief (across all presentation blocks). In Task 2, significant group differences were observed for 6 out of 9 positive, and 8 out of 9 negative emotions. Overall, results indicate that recognition of both positive and negative emotions show age-related differences. This suggests that the age-related positivity effect in emotion recognition may become less evident when dynamic emotional stimuli are used and happiness is not the only positive emotion under study.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Sara A. Heyn ◽  
Collin Schmit ◽  
Taylor J. Keding ◽  
Richard Wolf ◽  
Ryan J. Herringa

Abstract Despite broad evidence suggesting that adversity-exposed youth experience an impaired ability to recognize emotion in others, the underlying biological mechanisms remains elusive. This study uses a multimethod approach to target the neurological substrates of this phenomenon in a well-phenotyped sample of youth meeting diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Twenty-one PTSD-afflicted youth and 23 typically developing (TD) controls completed clinical interview schedules, an emotion recognition task with eye-tracking, and an implicit emotion processing task during functional magnetic resonance imaging )fMRI). PTSD was associated with decreased accuracy in identification of angry, disgust, and neutral faces as compared to TD youth. Of note, these impairments occurred despite the normal deployment of visual attention in youth with PTSD relative to TD youth. Correlation with a related fMRI task revealed a group by accuracy interaction for amygdala–hippocampus functional connectivity (FC) for angry expressions, where TD youth showed a positive relationship between anger accuracy and amygdala–hippocampus FC; this relationship was reversed in youth with PTSD. These findings are a novel characterization of impaired threat recognition within a well-phenotyped population of severe pediatric PTSD. Further, the differential amygdala–hippocampus FC identified in youth with PTSD may imply aberrant efficiency of emotional contextualization circuits.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Tell ◽  
Denise Davidson ◽  
Linda A. Camras

Eye gaze direction and expression intensity effects on emotion recognition in children with autism disorder and typically developing children were investigated. Children with autism disorder and typically developing children identified happy and angry expressions equally well. Children with autism disorder, however, were less accurate in identifying fear expressions across intensities and eye gaze directions. Children with autism disorder rated expressions with direct eyes, and 50% expressions, as more intense than typically developing children. A trend was also found for sad expressions, as children with autism disorder were less accurate in recognizing sadness at 100% intensity with direct eyes than typically developing children. Although the present research showed that children with autism disorder are sensitive to eye gaze direction, impairments in the recognition of fear, and possibly sadness, exist. Furthermore, children with autism disorder and typically developing children perceive the intensity of emotional expressions differently.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keri S. Rosch ◽  
Stewart H. Mostofsky

AbstractThe aim of this study was to examine delay discounting in girls and boys with ADHD-Combined type (ADHD-C) relative to typically developing (TD) children on two tasks that differ in the extent to which the rewards and delays were experienced by participants. Children ages 8–12 years with ADHD-C (n=65; 19 girls) and TD controls (n=55; 15 girls) completed two delay discounting tasks involving a series of choices between smaller, immediate and larger, delayed rewards. The classic delay discounting task involved choices about money at delays of 1–90 days and only some of the outcomes were actually experienced by the participants. The novel real-time discounting task involved choices about an immediately consumable reward (playing a preferred game) at delays of 25–100 s, all of which were actually experienced by participants. Participants also provided subjective ratings of how much they liked playing the game and waiting to play. Girls with ADHD-C displayed greater delay discounting compared to boys with ADHD-C and TD girls and boys on the real-time discounting task. Diagnostic group differences were not evident on the classic discounting task. In addition, children with ADHD-C reported wanting to play the game more and liking waiting to play the game less than TD children. This novel demonstration of greater delay discounting among girls with ADHD-C on a discounting task in which the rewards are immediately consumable and the delays are experienced in real-time informs our understanding of sex differences and motivational processes in children with ADHD. (JINS, 2016, 22, 12–23)


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Crosthwaite ◽  
Simon Boynton ◽  
Sam Cole

<p>This study attempts to validate an academic group tutorial discussion speaking test for undergraduate freshmen students taking initial EAP training at a university in Hong Kong in terms of task, rater and criterion validity. Three quantitative measures (Cronbach’s Alpha, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and Exploratory Factor Analysis) are used to assess validity of rater scores for the test using a rubric with considerations for assessment of academic stance presentation, inter-candidate interaction, and individual language proficiency. These results are triangulated with post-hoc interview data from the raters regarding the difficulties they face assessing individual proficiency and group interaction over time. The results suggest that current provisions of the rubric in dealing with the assessment of interaction in group settings (namely visual cues such as “active listening” as well as provisions for interruptions in the form of “domination”) are problematic, and that raters are unable to separate the grading of academic stance from the grading of language concerns. We also note affective and cognitive difficulties involved with assessing extended periods of interactional discourse including student talking time (or lack of it), the group dynamic, and raters” personal beliefs and practice as threats to validity that the statistical measurements were unable to capture. A new sample rubric and further suggestions for improving the validity of group tutorial assessments are provided.</p>


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