Emotional Development in Atypical Children

Michael Lewis, Margaret Wolan Sullivan, Michael Lewis, Margaret Wolan Sullivan

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317779353
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

Early emotional development, emotional regulation, and the links between emotion and social or cognitive functioning in atypically developing children have not received much attention. This lack is due in part to the priorities given to the educational and therapeutic needs of these children. Yet an understanding of the basic emotional processes in children with atypical development can only serve to promote more effective strategies for teaching and intervening in the lives of these children and their families and may contribute to our understanding of basic emotional processes as well. When referring to "emotions, " the editors mean some complex set of processes or abilities, whether or not the topic is normal or atypical development. Specifically, they use the term "emotion" to refer to at least three things -- emotional expressions, emotional states, and emotional experiences. The focus of this volume, these three aspects of emotional life are affected by socialization practices, maturational change, and individual biological differences including, in this case, differences in children as a function of disability. Contributors examine the development of emotions in children with organic or psychological disorders as well as those in compromised social contexts making this volume of prime importance to developmental, clinical, and social psychologists, educators, and child mental health experts.

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Expressivity in Physically and Emotionally Handicapped Children

_________

Tiffany Field

University of Miami School of Medicine

Handicapped children, like nonhandicapped children, have individual differences in their expressivity. But additional constraints, both physical and social, work against the communication value of their expressivity. It is more difficult to read their emotions, harder to understand their gestures, and difficult to encourage their natural expressivity because they sometimes look and sound abnormal. In this review of our research on expressivity in physically and emotionally handicapped children, I discuss some of the constraints posed by genetic predispositions, biological or handicapping condition limitations, preschool and other environmental influences, and potential neurochemical influences.

GENETIC PREDISPOSITIONS

Individual Differences in Expressivity

Expressivity differs among individuals as early as birth. These individual differences may relate to temperament, autonomic reactivity, and neurochemical differences. Infants’ expressivity and electrodermal responses to stimuli such as rats, buzzers, and bells were studied by Jones (1950). Consistent patterns of expressivity and autonomic reactivity were noted, patterns that Jones labeled internalizer, externalize, and generalizer (see Fig. 1.1 for model). Internalizers had frequent galvanic responses but were not overtly expressive, whereas externalizers were overtly expressive but had infrequent physiological responses. Generalizers were both overtly and internally responsive. According to Jones (1960), infants were extraverted by nature, but later in childhood children increasingly controlled or inhibited their overt expressions, and electrodermal responses increased. This model is consistent with that of Eysenck (1967), who noted in studies on adults that facially expressive adults had low-level physiological responses. In addition, they rated themselves as more extraverted, had higher thresholds to stimulation, and were more difficult to condition. By contrast, introverted adults were less expressive facially, had lower thresholds to stimulation, showed physiological responsivity to stimulation, and were more readily conditioned.

Internalizer	Generalizer	Externalizer
Low threshold	Moderate threshold	High threshold
High physiological reactivity	Moderate physiological reactivity	Low physiological reactivity
Low expressivity	Moderate expressivity	High expressivity
Rapid conditioning	Moderate conditioning	Slow conditioning

FIG. 1.1. Model for individual differences in expressivity

Eysenck (1967) suggested that introverts had a lower threshold to activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ABAS) and are therefore more readily conditioned or more sensitive to socialization. During socialization, overt responses are inhibited, and a negative relationship develops between overt expression and electrodermal responding in the introverted person. The lower thresholds of the ABAS and the propensity to introversion are also seen as an innate process by Eysenck. The internalizing-externalizing mode of expressivity may be present from birth and merely reinforced or attenuated by socialization experiences.

Expressivity Differences in Newborns

In one of our studies, neonatal expressivity, thresholds to stimulation, and physiological reactivity were recorded to determine the extent to which the newborns’ physiological reactivity was related to their expressivity (Field, Woodson, Greenberg, & Cohen, 1982). In this study, sleep state, activity level, facial expressions, heart rate (HR) and response to a series of pinpricks (as in the Brazelton Scale) were recorded to determine the sleeping neonates’ threshold for tactile stimuli. Cry sounds were also recorded for measures of latency to cry and cry duration and a series of buzzer tones were presented to determine the infants’ threshold for auditory stimulation. These procedures were followed by the Brazelton Scale and a facial discrimination/imitation procedure.

TABLE 1.1
Means for High-and Low-Expressivity Groupsa^a

	Expressivity of Infant
Measures	Low	High
Threshold
Pinpricks to response	1.2	1.9
Expressivity (in percent)
Accuracy of observers’ guesses	48	80
Happy (mouth widens)	5	14
Sad (lip protrusion)	8	22
Surprise (mouth open)	20	44
Physiological responsivity
Heart rate variability (beats per minute)	32	23
Habituation
Trials to criterion	7	11
Looking time (seconds)	10	16

^aAll means significandy different at p < .05

The high-expressive infants (see Table 1.1) showed more frequent imitative expressions, their facial expressions were accurately guessed more often than chance, they looked longer during the later trials of the series of faces presented to them, they had a lower mean HR but higher HR variability during sleep, they received more optimal Brazelton scores on orienting, state organization, and response to stress, and they had shorter mean latency to cry during the pinprick procedure. The high-expressive infants in this study were more socially responsive during the Brazelton interaction items and were more modulated or less irritable in their responses to stimulation, particularly stressful stimulation during the Brazelton. The Brazelton data suggest that the high-expressive infants were less aroused, showed higher sensory thresholds, and showed less intense responses to stimulation.

The lower mean HR of the high-expressive infants during sleep, together with their greater HR variability, was similar to data by Garcia-Coll, Kagan, and Reznick (1984), who found that infants who were uninhibited in their expressivity had lower resting mean HR and greater HR variability. During auditory stimulation trials, the high-expressive infants also showed lower mean HR and greater HR variability. Unfortunately, because of concerns about movement artifacts neither our group nor Garcia-Coll et al. collected HR data during the actual procedure for which the data on expressive or uninhibited behaviors were collected. That HR data would have more directly assessed the hypothesized negative relationship between facial expressivity and autonomic reactivity. This negative relationship might also explain data by Lewis, Brooks, and Haviland (1978) in their cleverly titled paper “Hearts and Faces,” suggesting strong facial responses in some infants and strong HR responses in other infants.

The fact that our high-expressive infants looked longer at the face stimuli during the latter trials suggests that they were less readily habituated to the face stimuli, a result that is somewhat similar to Eysenck’s (1967) data on extraverted adults, all of whom were less readily conditioned. An externalizer-internalizer typology or the extraverted-introverted distinction proposed by Eysenck is suggested by the significant individual differences between high- and low-expressive infants on attentiveness, responsivity to social stimulation, autonomic reactivity, and accuracy of mimicry soon after birth. The expressive infants were less reactive autonomically, had higher thresholds, and were less readily habituated to face stimuli.

Monozygotic Twins are More Similar on Expressivity at Birth

To further explore individual differences in expressivity we assessed 28 monozygotic (MZ) and 28 dizygotic (DZ) twins in the same habituation-imitation procedure. The analyses in general revealed greater concordance within the MZ twin pairs than within the DZ twin pairs. With respect to the habituation data, the mean number of trials to habituation and the mean looking times per trial did not differ between the MZ and DZ twin groups. However, the difference scores between individual infants within twin dyads were greater for the DZ twins than for the MZ twins. The average difference scores for mean looking time during the happy face trials were 2.5 seconds for the MZ twins and 5.5 seconds for the DZ twins. Even greater differences were noted between MZ and DZ twins on the sad face and surprise face trials.

Similarly, for a 5-point expressivity rating, a greater difference was observed in expressivity between infants belonging to DZ twin pairs than between infants belonging to MZ twin pairs. There was a similarly greater discordance between the DZ twins for the measure of accuracy with which the model’s facial expression could be guessed by looking at the expression on the neonate’s face. For example, for the happy face expression trials the discordance rate for the DZ twins was 60% versus 43% for the MZ twin pairs. These data on the greater concordance of expressivity in newborn MZ twins versus DZ twins provide additional support for the observation that individual differences in expressivity occur as early as birth. Expressive neonates begin life with the advantage of being more socially responsive, as evidenced by their superior Brazelton interaction scores. This, in turn, contributes to better interactions with their parents. At the preschool stage, more expressive children are more popular and experience more positive social interactions with their peers (Buck, 1975; Field & Walden, 1982). In addition to experiencing less difficulty in interacting with their peers, expressive, externalizer children may experience less physiological arousal and less stress-related disease and may show more empathy.

BIOLOGICAL OR HANDICAPPING CONDITION LIMITATIONS

In this section, research is reviewed suggesting that the more severe the handicapping condition, the more difficult the temperament on all dimensions; expressivity or temperament differs across handicapping conditions even when the children are the same developmental age; there is some variation across situations, for example, the child interacting with the mother versus interacting in the classroom; and there is moderate agreement across observers, be they ...