Social Competence in Children with Brain Disorders: A Meta-analytic Review

Abstract

Social competence, i.e. appropriate or effective social functioning, is an important determinant of quality of life. Social competence consists of social skills, social performance and social adjustment. The current paper reviews social skills, in particular emotion recognition performance and its relationship with social adjustment in children with brain disorders. In this review, normal development and the neuro-anatomical correlates of emotion recognition in both healthy children and adults and in various groups of children with brain disorders, will be discussed. A systematic literature search conducted on PubMed, yielded nine papers. Emotion recognition tasks were categorized on the basis of task design and emotional categories to ensure optimal comparison across studies before an explorative meta-analysis was conducted. This meta-analytic review suggests that children with brain disorders show impaired emotion recognition, with the recognition of sad and fearful expressions being most impaired. Performance did not seem to be related to derivative measures of social adjustment. Despite the limited number of studies on a variety of brain disorders and control groups, outcomes were quite consistent across analyses and corresponded largely with the existing literature on development of emotion recognition in typically developing children. More longitudinal prospective studies on emotion recognition are needed to gain insight into recovery and subsequent development of children with distinct brain disorders. This will aid development, selection and implementation of interventions for improvement of social competence and quality of life in children with a brain disorder.

Facial emotion perception in patients with epilepsy: A systematic review with meta-analysis

“…Meta-regression, which only included patients with TLE, found just one moderator variable is associated with facial emotion perception; younger age at assessment is related to lower facial emotion perception accuracy. Yet, only three studies involved children with epilepsy (Braams et al, 2015;Golouboff et al, 2008;Pinabiaux et al, 2013), representing a serious shortcoming in the literature, as facial emotion perception is critical for the development of social cognition (Rantanen, Eriksson, & Nieminen, 2012) and social functioning (Kok et al, 2014;Van Overwalle, 2009). Hence, impaired facial emotion perception may hinder the development of social cognitive skills, such as theory of mind, that are important for successful interpersonal relationships and social interaction (Rantanen et al, 2012;Realmuto et al, 2015).…”

Social Functioning of Childhood Cancer Survivors after Computerized Cognitive Training: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Studies have investigated the relationship between cognitive and social skills deficits as they link to late effects of childhood cancer. Children treated for cancer who have lower overall intellectual ability have been found to exhibit poorer social information processing and social skills [24,25]. The importance of attentional control and executive functioning for age-appropriate social skills has also been highlighted [7,26].…”

“…The importance of attentional control and executive functioning for age-appropriate social skills has also been highlighted [7,26]. Children with insults to the brain (e.g., as a result of diagnosis or treatment) have been found to have an impaired ability to process social stimuli (e.g., affect, facial expressions) due to attentional difficulties, and these impairments are associated with lower overall social functioning [25,27,28]. Executive functioning skills have also been found to both moderate and mediate the relationship between social-emotional interventions and social development, such that children with executive functioning deficits have more difficulty inhibiting impulses, problem solving, and attending to intervention curricula at baseline [29].…”

Emotion Recognition in Kindergarten Children

“…Moreover, the communicatory signals according to the model of Bühler are often not understandable to children suffering from some psychiatric and neurologic disorders. They most often show impaired emotion recognition of sad and fearful expressions [28] as do individuals with autism spectrum disorder [ASD; 29], alexithymia [30, 31], or schizophrenia [32]. Additionally, recognition of emotions in faces and in prosody proved to be impaired in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD; 33] and with learning disabilities [34].…”