Carin H. Wiefferink

Emotion Understanding in Deaf Children with a Cochlear Implant

It is still largely unknown how receiving a cochlear implant affects the emotion understanding in deaf children. We examined indices for emotion understanding and their associations with communication skills in children aged 2.5-5 years, both hearing children (n = 52) and deaf children with a cochlear implant (n = 57). 2 aspects of emotion understanding were examined: (a) emotion recognition in facial expressions and (b) emotion attribution in a situational context. On all emotion-understanding tasks, children with a cochlear implant were less proficient than children with normal hearing. In children with normal hearing, performance and language skills were positively associated. In children with cochlear implants, language was positively associated only with tasks in which a verbal demand was made on children. These findings indicate that hearing loss in children, despite a cochlear implant, affects all aspects of emotion understanding measured in this study, including their nonverbal emotion-understanding skills.

Predicting social functioning in children with a cochlear implant and in normal-hearing children: The role of emotion regulation

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the present study was to compare children with a cochlear implant and normal hearing children on aspects of emotion regulation (emotion expression and coping strategies) and social functioning (social competence and externalizing behaviors) and the relation between emotion regulation and social functioning. METHODS Participants were 69 children with cochlear implants (CI children) and 67 normal hearing children (NH children) aged 1.5-5 years. Parents answered questionnaires about their childrens language skills, social functioning, and emotion regulation. Children also completed simple tasks to measure their emotion regulation abilities. RESULTS Cochlear implant children had fewer adequate emotion regulation strategies and were less socially competent than normal hearing children. The parents of cochlear implant children did not report fewer externalizing behaviors than those of normal hearing children. While social competence in normal hearing children was strongly related to emotion regulation, cochlear implant children regulated their emotions in ways that were unrelated with social competence. On the other hand, emotion regulation explained externalizing behaviors better in cochlear implant children than in normal hearing children. While better language skills were related to higher social competence in both groups, they were related to fewer externalizing behaviors only in cochlear implant children. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that cochlear implant children have less adequate emotion-regulation strategies and less social competence than normal hearing children. Since they received their implants relatively recently, they might eventually catch up with their hearing peers. Longitudinal studies should further explore the development of emotion regulation and social functioning in cochlear implant children.

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

To examine the levels of social competence and empathic behavior in children with cochlear implants in comparison with normal‐hearing children, and to determine whether empathy predicts social competence to the same extent in both groups of children.

Children with cochlear implants and their parents : relations between parenting style and children's social-emotional functioning

Objectives: Parenting a child who has a severe or profound hearing loss can be challenging and at times stressful, and might cause parents to use more adverse parenting styles compared with parents of hearing children. Parenting styles are known to impact children’s social-emotional development. Children with a severe to profound hearing loss may be more reliant on their parents in terms of their social-emotional development when compared with their hearing peers who typically have greater opportunities to interact with and learn from others outside their family environment. Identifying the impact which parenting styles pertain on the social-emotional development of children who have cochlear implants (CIs) could help advance these children’s well-being. Therefore, the authors compared parenting styles of parents with hearing children and of parents with children who have a CI, and examined the relations between parenting styles and two key aspects of children’s social-emotional functioning: emotion regulation and empathy. Design: Ninety-two hearing parents and their children (aged 1 to 5 years old), who were either hearing (n = 46) or had a CI (n = 46), participated in this cross-sectional study. Parents completed questionnaires concerning their parenting styles (i.e., positive, negative and uninvolved), and regarding the extent to which their children expressed negative emotions (i.e., anger and sadness) and empathy. Furthermore, an emotion-regulation task measuring negative emotionality was administered to the children. Results: No differences in reported parenting styles were observed between parents of hearing children and parents of children with a CI. In addition, negative and uninvolved parenting styles were related to higher levels of negative emotionality in both groups of children. No relation was found between positive parenting and children’s social-emotional functioning. Hearing status did not moderate these relationships. Language mediated the relationship between parenting styles and children’s social-emotional functioning. Conclusions: Children’s hearing status did not impact parenting styles. This may be a result of the support that parents of children with a CI receive during their enrollment in the rehabilitation program preceding and after implantation. Rehabilitation programs should dedicate more attention to informing parents about the impact of parenting behaviors on children’s social-emotional functioning. Offering parenting courses as part of the program could promote children’s well-being. Future longitudinal research should address the directionality of the relations between parenting styles and children’s social-emotional functioning.