No abstract

We cross-sectionally examined the development of the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotions in preschool-aged children and the relationship between this ability and other neurocognitive capacities, that is, attention/executive functions, language, memory/learning, sensorimotor functions, theory of mind, and visuospatial processing. Children aged 3 to 6 years with no significant developmental deficits (N = 370) were assessed with a nonverbal matching task of emotion recognition ability: The Affect Recognition subtest from the NEPSY-II. The relationship between emotion recognition ability and other neurocognitive capacities was analyzed using correlation, regression, and commonality analyses. The results showed that (a) emotion recognition ability improved with age-this development decelerating mildly between ages 5 and 6-(b) emotion recognition ability correlated with all other neurocognitive capacities, and (c) language, attention/executive functions, and theory of mind were significant predictors of emotion recognition ability in the regression analysis. As revealed by the commonality analysis, and in contrast to most previous studies, language was the most important predictor of nonverbal emotion recognition ability. These results suggest that nonverbal emotion matching is an early maturing skill that develops in relation to other neurocognitive capacities, especially linguistic ability.

Significant differences in neurocognitive performance between children from Finland, Italy, and the United States were found. These findings may be due to cultural or educational differences that impact test performance, or due to factors associated with the adaptation of measures from one culture to another. The finding of performance differences across countries on similar tasks indicate that cross-cultural and background variables impact performance on neuropsychological measures. Therefore, clinicians need to consider a child's cultural background when evaluating performance on neuropsychological assessments. The results also indicate that future cross-cultural studies are needed to further examine the underlying cultural factors that influence neurocognitive performance. (JINS, 2017, 23, 367-380).

Children's language background relates to their neurocognitive development. Knowledge of this relationship is important as bilingualism is common. However, research regarding language background in relation to performance on cognitive tests such as the WPPSI‐IV and NEPSY‐II is scarce. The present study compared WPPSI‐IV and NEPSY‐II performances between 5‐ and 6‐year‐old Swedish‐speaking monolingual (n = 45) and Swedish‐Finnish‐speaking simultaneous bilingual (n = 34) children in Finland. The participants were gathered by stratified sampling and were assessed with the Swedish versions of the tests. In profile analyses, a significant monolingual advantage was found in some WPPSI‐IV subtests and indexes requiring expressive vocabulary (Vocabulary, Similarities, Picture Naming, and Vocabulary Acquisition Index) and visuospatial skills (Object Assembly and Visual Spatial Index). No group differences were found between mono‐ and bilingual children in receptive language, visual memory, or fluid intelligence. Additionally, no differences were found on the Full Scale IQ. The performance on the WPPSI‐IV Similarities subtest improved in a subgroup of bilinguals when answers in both Swedish and Finnish were accounted for, instead of accepting only answers in Swedish. No significant differences were found between mono‐ and bilinguals on the language and memory tasks of NEPSY‐II. These findings highlight the importance of considering the child's language background when assessing expressive language in young children, as well as the benefits of assessing bilinguals in both of their languages.