The influence of children’s emotional comprehension on peer conflict resolution strategies

Parental and Adolescents' Anxiety during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Rural China: The role of Parent-child Communication

Purpose

It has been suggested that the intergenerational transmission of anxiety may be an important contributor to the high prevalence of anxiety in adolescents. The objectives of this study are to examine whether and how parental anxiety is related to adolescent's anxiety and to explore the associations of parental anxiety and parent-child communication with adolescents' anxiety across different grades.

Methods

The current survey was conducted online from February 8th to February 27th, 2020.The questionnaires were distributed and retrieved through a web-based platform. A total of 6196 Chinese rural adolescents from grade seven to twelve (age ranging from 11 to 18 years old) were included.

Results

In this study, parental anxiety was significantly associated with higher adolescent anxiety (β = 0.14, p < 0.001) and this association was statically strongest at grade twelve. Besides, children with problematic parent-child communication related to COVID-19 reported elevated anxiety (β = 0.05, p < 0.01). In contrast, effective parent-child communication about COVID-19 mitigated the level of anxiety transmitted from parent to child (β = -0.04, p < 0.05).

Conclusions

During the COVID-19 epidemic, parents' anxiety was related to adolescents' anxiety. In addition, parent-child communication plays a moderating role in the above relationship. These findings emphasize the importance of implementing more psycho-education programs that specifically target parents' emotion regulation and effective communication abilities to ameliorate the psychopathological symptoms of parents and their children.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40653-023-00609-y.

Emotional abilities in preadolescents and adolescents with long-term cochlear implant use

OBJECTIVES

Emotional abilities (EAs) are particularly important during preadolescence/adolescence, two challenging periods characterized by significant biological, physical, and cognitive changes. The present study attempted to a holistic EA approach in preadolescents/adolescents with cochlear implants (CI) and typical hearing (TH), considering various aspects such as perception, cognitive facilitation, comprehension, and management of emotions. A secondary aim was to identify significant demographic and audiological factors of EA development.

METHODS

CI/TH groups were matched for chronological age, nonverbal IQ, gender, economic income, and maternal level of education. Each group consisted of 43 participants (age range 10-18 years). EAs were evaluated by using the multi-trait/method IE-ACCME test. Auditory-linguistic assessments included participants' lexical skills and Matrix performance as well.

RESULTS

EA performance for perception and cognitive facilitation did not show any statistically significant CI/TH group differences (p > 0.05). Significant CI/TH differences emerged for emotion comprehension and management: CI group performed significantly worse in understanding emotional blends (t = 2.56, p = 0.014) but better in personal emotion management (t = -2.01, p = 0.048). For the CI group, gender showed statistically significant effects on cognitive facilitation in sensations, with males performing better than females (U = 129, p = 0.018). TH preadolescents showed significantly lower scores in understanding emotional changes in comparison to TH adolescents (U = 125.5, p = 0.01). Emotional blends understanding showed a weak negative correlation with Matrix performance (r = - 0.38, p = 0.013) and a moderate positive correlation with lexical skills (r = 0.40, p = 0.008). Relationships management showed various significant correlations: weak negative correlations with age at CI (r = - 0.38, p = 0.011) and Matrix performance (r = - 0.36, p = 0.016) as well as weak positive correlations with nonverbal-IQ (r = 0.38, p = 0.013) and positive moderate correlations with lexical skills (r = 0.49, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Cochlear implantation seems to show significant positive effects on emotional development in children, allowing them to achieve age appropriate EAs as they grow up and become preadolescents/adolescents. EA assessment in CI users may not only support monitorization of EA trajectory, but also early identification of any EA disorders, so that subjects with low EA profiles could be timely and properly intervened.