Facial expression recognition: Can preschoolers with cochlear implants and hearing aids catch it?

Faster phonological processing and right occipito-temporal coupling in deaf adults signal poor cochlear implant outcome

“…Similar to a previous study where in post-lingual deaf adults the functional specialization of the right temporal lobe (STG) shifted from environmental sound to phonological processing9, the current results could reflect a deafness-related shift from voice/facial emotion recognition to written speech processing within the right STS. This hypothesis concurs with recent findings in deaf children60 suggesting that CI users are impaired in facial expression processing. Altogether, the current findings confirm that the right STG/STS region undergoes functional reorganization in post-lingual deaf subjects (see ref.…”

Social competence and empathy in young children with cochlear implants and with normal hearing

“…Studies with younger children with CI (ages 2 to 5) also report impaired emotion recognition skills. 22,23 The current study set out to measure emotional and social skills in very young children, which is challenging because they are not yet able to reflect on their feelings or intentions. Therefore, different instruments were employed to gain an insight into their empathic behaviors and level of social competence.…”

Facial Expression Recognition in Children with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids

“…Finally, they found no significant difference between children with a CI and children with normal hearing. However, Wang et al (2011) found that children with a CI or HA displayed less developed FER compared to children with normal hearing, especially regarding their ability to recognize anger and fear. Additional support for Wang, Su, Fang, and Zhou’s finding was found by Wiefferink et al (2013).…”

“…Color images of four basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, and fear) (Wang et al, 2011) were used in emotion-matching tasks and emotion-labeling tasks. Black and white images of four shapes (circle, square, rectangle, and triangle) were used as control tasks to measure children’s basic abilities of matching and labeling.…”

“…The shape-labeling task was used to control for the presence of basic labeling abilities. Children were asked to point to the item that the experimenter asked for randomly, either an emotion (happiness, sadness, anger, and fear) (Wang et al, 2011) or a shape (circle, square, rectangle, and triangle) (control task). For example, “who is happy” was the child’s cue to point out the respective emotional expression that matched the label.…”