title: Happy faces, sad faces: Emotion understanding in toddlers and preschoolers with language impairments.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The capacity for emotion recognition and understanding is crucial for daily social functioning. We examined to what extent this capacity is impaired in young children with a Language Impairment (LI). In typical development, children learn to recognize emotions in faces and situations through social experiences and social learning. Children with LI have less access to these experiences and are therefore expected to fall behind their peers without LI.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, 89 preschool children with LI and 202 children without LI (mean age 3 years and 10 months in both groups) were tested on three indices for facial emotion recognition (discrimination, identification, and attribution in emotion evoking situations). Parents reported on their children's emotion vocabulary and ability to talk about their own emotions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Preschoolers with and without LI performed similarly on the non-verbal task for emotion discrimination. Children with LI fell behind their peers without LI on both other tasks for emotion recognition that involved labelling the four basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, fear). The outcomes of these two tasks were also related to children's level of emotion language.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These outcomes emphasize the importance of 'emotion talk' at the youngest age possible for children with LI.
authors.affiliation: Developmental Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands; Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Institute of Education UCL, London, UK. Electronic address: crieffe@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Carolien
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rieffe
authors.affiliation: Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Carin H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Wiefferink
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Emotion talk; Emotional competence; Facial recognition; Language impairment; Theory of mind