How Individuals With Down Syndrome Process Faces and Words Conveying Emotions? Evidence From a Priming Paradigm

Event-related potential correlates of implicit processing of own- and other-race faces in children

Human adults typically experience difficulties in recognizing and discriminating individual faces belonging to racial groups other than their own. The origin of this "other-race" effect is set in infancy, but the understanding of its developmental course is fragmented. We aimed to access the mechanisms of the other-race effect in childhood by unraveling the neural time course of own- and other-race face processing during a masked priming paradigm. White 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 19) categorized fully visible Asian (other-race) or White (own-race) target faces according to gender. Target faces were preceded by masked same-identity or different-identity prime faces, matching the target for race and gender. We showed an early priming effect on the N100 component, with larger amplitude to different-face pairs than to same-face pairs, and a later race effect on the N200 component, with larger amplitude to own-race face pairs than to other-race face pairs. Critically, race did not interact with priming at any processing stage (P100, N100, P200, N200, or P300). Our results suggest that race could have a temporally limited impact on face processing and that the implicit and unconscious identity processing of own- and other-race faces could be similar in 6- and 7-year-olds, depicting an immature other-race effect during childhood.

Searching for Best Predictors of Paralinguistic Comprehension and Production of Emotions in Communication in Adults With Moderate Intellectual Disability

Paralinguistic comprehension and production of emotions in communication include the skills of recognizing and interpreting emotional states with the help of facial expressions, prosody and intonation. In the relevant scientific literature, the skills of paralinguistic comprehension and production of emotions in communication are related primarily to receptive language abilities, although some authors found also their correlations with intellectual abilities and acoustic features of the voice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate which of the mentioned variables (receptive language ability, acoustic features of voice, intellectual ability, social-demographic), presents the most relevant predictor of paralinguistic comprehension and paralinguistic production of emotions in communication in adults with moderate intellectual disabilities (MID). The sample included 41 adults with MID, 20–49 years of age (M = 34.34, SD = 7.809), 29 of whom had MID of unknown etiology, while 12 had Down syndrome. All participants are native speakers of Serbian. Two subscales from The Assessment Battery for Communication – Paralinguistic comprehension of emotions in communication and Paralinguistic production of emotions in communication, were used to assess the examinees from the aspect of paralinguistic comprehension and production skills. For the graduation of examinees from the aspect of assumed predictor variables, the following instruments were used: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was used to assess receptive language abilities, Computerized Speech Lab (“Kay Elemetrics” Corp., model 4300) was used to assess acoustic features of voice, and Raven’s Progressive Matrices were used to assess intellectual ability. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to investigate to which extent the proposed variables present an actual predictor variables for paralinguistic comprehension and production of emotions in communication as dependent variables. The results of this analysis showed that only receptive language skills had statistically significant predictive value for paralinguistic comprehension of emotions (β = 0.468, t = 2.236, p < 0.05), while the factor related to voice frequency and interruptions, form the domain of acoustic voice characteristics, displays predictive value for paralinguistic production of emotions (β = 0.280, t = 2.076, p < 0.05). Consequently, this study, in the adult population with MID, evidenced a greater importance of voice and language in relation to intellectual abilities in understanding and producing emotions.

Emotional Lexicon in Down Syndrome

We studied comprehension of emotion versus concrete/abstract words in Down syndrome (DS). Study 1 compared 26 participants with DS and 26 typically developing (TD) children matched on verbal ability. Results showed no difference between groups. Study 2 assessed whether chronological age (CA) and (non)verbal abilities predicted developmental trajectories of comprehension in 36 children with DS and 143 TD children. For the latter, these variables predicted comprehension of all three word types. For the former, receptive vocabulary predicted comprehension of all word types, but CA and nonverbal reasoning only predicted comprehension of concrete words. This suggests that people with DS have no specific emotional lexicon deficit. Supporting their general lexical development would help them access abstract and emotional meanings.

Development of Down Syndrome Research Over the Last Decades-What Healthcare and Education Professionals Need to Know

Down syndrome (DS) is the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder, with a known genetic cause. Besides facial dysmorphologies and congenital and/or acquired medical conditions, the syndrome is characterized by intellectual disability, accelerated aging, and an increased likelihood of an early onset Alzheimer's disease in adulthood. These common patterns of DS are derived from the long-held standard in the field of DS research, that describes individuals with DS as a homogeneous group and compares phenotypic outcomes with either neurotypical controls or other neurodevelopmental disorders. This traditional view has changed, as modern research pinpoints a broad variability in both the occurrence and severity of symptoms across DS, arguing for DS heterogeneity and against a single "DS profile." Nevertheless, prenatal counseling does not often prioritize the awareness of potential within-group variations of DS, portraying only a vague picture of the developmental outcomes of children with DS to expectant parents. This mini-review provides a concise update on existent information about the heterogeneity of DS from a full-spectrum developmental perspective, within an interdisciplinary context. Knowledge on DS heterogeneity will not only enable professionals to enhance the quality of prenatal counseling, but also help parents to set targeted early interventions, to further optimize daily functions and the quality of life of their children.

Exploring different aspects of emotion understanding in adults with Down Syndrome

BACKGROUND

Adults with Down Syndrome (DS) present difficulties in emotion understanding, although research has mainly focused on emotion recognition (external aspects), and little is known about their performance in other complex components (mental and reflective aspects).

AIMS

This study aims to examine different aspects of emotion understanding in adults with DS, including a codification of their error pattern, and also to determine the association with other variables that are commonly impaired in adults with DS.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Twenty-two adults with DS and twenty-two children with typical development (TD) matched for vocabulary level were assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), along with other non-verbal reasoning (NVR), structural language and working memory (WM) tasks.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Adults with DS showed lower emotion competence than children with TD in different components of the TEC, and also a different pattern of errors was observed. Structural language, NVR and WM predicted distinct emotion understanding skills in different ways.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

It is important to plan interventions aimed at improving particular aspects of emotion understanding skills for adults with DS, taking into account the different components, the type of error and the different cognitive and linguistic skills involved in each emotion understanding skill.

Implementation of an Intervention Plan for Emotional Development in People with Down Syndrome

The importance of music, as well as the different and diverse possibilities that it offers, favors the emotional development of any person. This research is based on the development and application of a set of activities, whose transversal axis is the use of music, to favor and promote the emotional development of people with Down syndrome. This application of activities was developed with a group of eight participants, between the ages of twenty and forty-five years old. Additionally, under a total duration of eight working sessions. In these sessions, listening, vocal, instrumental, and movement activities were developed. For each of the emotions worked on; joy, fear, anger, sadness, calm, and love, a story and a song from the story were selected for each one of them. The methodology used was qualitative, using program evaluation. For this purpose, on the one hand, the data obtained during the different sessions were analyzed, and on the other hand, the data collected in the two discussion groups carried out were analyzed. Finally, the data obtained were organized into six categories: image recognition, observation of emotions, experience of emotions, identification of emotions, recognition of emotions, and finally, enjoyment of emotions. It could be seen that, after the sessions, there was a significant improvement in the different categories. However, in the categories of identification of emotions and recognition of emotions, the results were more favorable compared to the rest.