Emotion Recognition in Preterm and Full-Term School-Age Children

Abstract

Children born preterm (<37 weeks’ gestation) show a specific vulnerability for socio-emotional difficulties, which may lead to an increased likelihood of developing behavioral and psychiatric problems in adolescence and adulthood. The accurate decoding of emotional signals from faces represents a fundamental prerequisite for early social interactions, allowing children to derive information about others’ feelings and intentions. The present study aims to explore possible differences between preterm and full-term children in the ability to detect emotional expressions, as well as possible relationships between this ability and socio-emotional skills and problem behaviors during everyday activities. We assessed 55 school-age children (n = 34 preterm and n = 21 full-term) with a cognitive battery that ensured comparable cognitive abilities between the two groups. Moreover, children were asked to identify emotional expressions from pictures of peers’ faces (Emotion Recognition Task). Finally, children’s emotional, social and behavioral outcomes were assessed with parent-reported questionnaires. The results revealed that preterm children were less accurate than full-term children in detecting positive emotional expressions and they showed poorer social and behavioral outcomes. Notably, correlational analyses showed a relationship between the ability to recognize emotional expressions and socio-emotional functioning. The present study highlights that early difficulties in decoding emotional signals from faces may be critically linked to emotional and behavioral regulation problems, with important implications for the development of social skills and effective interpersonal interactions.

Different aspects of visual perception are important for 12‐year social functioning depending on gestational age

“…Results showed that both EPT and VPT subgroups had poorer performance in perception of biological motion associated with dorsal stream information processing, but the difficulties may have varied in functions associated with the ventral stream route such as static shape and emotion perception. The results for perception of emotion partly contradicted earlier studies indicating that children born very preterm had difficulties in interpreting facial expressions, since poorer results on both the static shape perception test and the perception of emotion test were associated with lower gestational age in the EPT group 7 . Timing can be crucial for social functioning and scores from the standardised perception of emotion test do not incorporate the time to match emotions.…”

“…Children born preterm with a gestational age below 32 weeks have an increased risk of developing white and grey matter brain injury associated with later perceptual problems and social difficulties 1–4 . Deficits in visual perception include poorer perception of shapes and spatial relations between objects, difficulties with facial recognition and decreased ability to perceive moving patterns 5–7 . The neural processing of visual information includes two pathways, the ventral stream and the dorsal stream 8,9 .…”

“…This includes the ability to perceive and use social cues, such as facial expressions and body language, in order to make correct judgements about other individuals' intentions. 7,13 Difficulties in interpreting facial expressions have been shown in both children and adults who were born very preterm. 7,14 Perception of biological motion, that is the ability to perceptually identify the coherent movement of dots representing shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and feet as a human entity, develops gradually from birth (Figure 1).…”

“…7,13 Difficulties in interpreting facial expressions have been shown in both children and adults who were born very preterm. 7,14 Perception of biological motion, that is the ability to perceptually identify the coherent movement of dots representing shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and feet as a human entity, develops gradually from birth (Figure 1). 13 School-age children born preterm had more difficulties in detecting and interpreting biological motion than full-term peers and such difficulties were also associated with social behaviour problems.…”

“…[1][2][3][4] Deficits in visual perception include poorer perception of shapes and spatial relations between objects, difficulties with facial recognition and decreased ability to perceive moving patterns. [5][6][7] The neural processing of visual information includes two pathways, the ventral stream and the dorsal stream. 8,9 Static shape perception and face recognition are primarily associated with ventral stream processing, while the dorsal stream pathway is regarded as a major route for motion analysis.…”