The Ability to Encode Facial and Emotional Expressions by Educable Mentally Retarded and Nonretarded Children

Abstract

The object of the present study was to investigate whether 20 educable mentally retarded (EMR) children matched for verbal mental age on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT; Dunn, 1965) with 20 nonretarded (NR) controls were adept in identifying emotional facial expressions and producing the equivalent word adjectives. I also reassessed the relationship between the phase of identifying facial expressions (i.e., happy, sad, angry, and scared) and the phase of producing emotional word adjectives, consisting of 16 emotional linguistic constructions (4 short stories for each of the adjectives) between higher in verbal ability educable mentally retarded (HEMR) children and higher in verbal ability nonretarded controls (HNRC) and between low in verbal ability educable mentally retarded (LEMR) children and low in verbal ability nonretarded controls (LNRC). There were no significant differences between EMR and NR children in general, despite the fact that EMR children had deficits in receptive linguistic competence.

Eliciting Facial Expressions in Children with and without Down Syndrome

“…Similar to previous findings, Xeromeritou (1992) found that during the identification task, there were no significant differences between the two groups. Unlike previous results, no significant differences were found between the two groups during the production task of the study.…”

“…Adams and Markham (1991) found that children and adolescents with MR recognized / significantly fewer expressions than did the non-MR participants. On the other hand, Xeromeritou (1992) found no difference in recognition abilities between the two groups of children. Finally, McAlpine et al (1991) found that as age increased in the participants with MR, the less correct they were in identifying expressions.…”

“…By matching the participants on their mental age, researchers would be certain that both experimental and control groups would understand the video clips in a similar manner. For example, Xeromeritou (1992) matched her participants based on their MA. Her study entailed a story in which an emotion was mentioned and felt by the character.…”

“…Recognition seems to decrease in people with mental retardation, when compared to their MA match without mental retardation. A study by Xeromeritou (1992) used a task similar to that used in Adams and Markham's (1991) study. Results showed no differences between the two groups with regard to identification of sad, happy, angry, and scared expressions.…”

“…French spoof on James Bond. Likewise, Xeromeritou (1992) investigated recognition of facial expressions by children with MR and children who were typically developing. Twenty participants in each group were matched on their verbal MA using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).…”