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Children with social communication disorders have been found to exhibit deficits in emotional intelligence, including the ability to identify emotions attributed to facial expressions. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the efficacy of a social communication intervention program designed to increase the accuracy of emotion based word use in three elementary school-aged participants with social communication disorders. The participants took part in a multiple-baseline, 20-session treatment including story enactment, journaling procedures, and supplementary activities. The story enactment portion of the intervention centered on Mercer Mayer's A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog (1967) wordless picture book series. Participants' emotion word productions were analyzed in six categories (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust) and valence accuracy was determined for all productions. Results proved variable, but each of the three participants demonstrated improvements in accuracy in at least two emotion categories that were not mastered prior to the onset of the intervention. In addition, two of the three participants increased in valence accuracy of emotion word productions between baseline and follow-up measures. Taken as a whole, the results suggest that this particular intervention program was effective in improving competency in select emotion categories for all three participants. Discussions of individual participant outcomes are included, as well as suggestions for further research.

Mémoire de maîtrise présenté en vue de l'obtention de la maîtrise en psychologie (M. Sc) / Introduction. Il est bien établi que les survivants tumeurs cérébrales pédiatriques (STCP) éprouvent des difficultés sociales, et la reconnaissance d’émotions faciales a été étudiée comme un mécanisme sous-jacent. Cependant, l'influence possible de la pandémie sur les capacités de reconnaissance des affects chez les STCP reste inexplorée. La présente étude visait à comparer la reconnaissance des émotions faciales (avec accès au visage complet versus seulement la région des yeux) entre les STCP et des jeunes à développement typique ainsi qu’à examiner son association avec l'adaptation sociale. Méthode. Des STCP (n=23) au moins un an après le traitement et des contrôles (n=24) entre 8 et 16 ans ont complété le sous-test de reconnaissance des affects du NEPSY-II (visage complet) et la version enfant du Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET, seulement le haut du visage). Résultats. Les groupes ne différaient pas sur leurs habiletés de reconnaissance d’émotions et ceux-ci n’étaient pas associés à leur adaptation sociale. Comparé aux normes pré-pandémie, notre échantillon avait plus de difficultés dans leur capacité de reconnaissance d’émotions avec visage complet ainsi qu’une meilleure performance avec seulement le haut du visage disponible (p < .05). Les participants ont aussi obtenu de meilleurs résultats au RMET qu’au NEPSY-II (p< .05). Conclusion. En somme, la pandémie semble avoir joué un rôle sur les capacités de reconnaissance des émotions faciales, tant chez les STCP que chez les contrôles, soulignant la nécessité d'études futures sur les effets à long terme de la pandémie sur les compétences sociales des jeunes. / Introduction. It is well-established that pediatric brain tumour survivors (PBTS) experience social difficulties, and facial emotion recognition has been studied as an underlying mechanism. However, the possible influence of the pandemic on affect recognition abilities in PBTS remains unexplored. The present study aimed to compare facial affect recognition (with full versus partial facial features) between PBTS and healthy controls (HC) and to examine its association with social adjustment. Method. PBTS (N=23, ages 8-16) at least one-year post-treatment and HC (N=24, ages 8-16) completed the NEPSY-II Affect Recognition subtest (full face) and the child version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET, upper face only). Results. The groups did not differ in their ability to recognize emotions, and these were not associated with social adjustment. Compared with pre-pandemic norms, our sample had a lower performance in their emotion recognition ability with full face and a better performance with only upper face (p < .05). Participants also performed better on the RMET than on the NEPSY-II (p< .05). Conclusion. In sum, the pandemic appears to have played a role in facial emotion recognition abilities in both PBTS and controls, highlighting the need for future studies on the pandemic long-term effects on young people's social skills.

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<p><strong>Background:</strong> Developmental neuroscience research suggests that relative differences in emerging social skills between very young children with ASD may influence the trajectories of multiple important developmental domains, such as language ability. Such “cascade” associations between developmental trajectories may contribute in important ways to the substantial heterogeneity in symptoms and functioning seen in children with ASD. However, longitudinal research has yet to test such “cascade” models of change in children diagnosed with ASD.</p> <p><strong>Objectives:</strong> In this dissertation I aimed to model cascade patterns of association between social competence and language ability pathways in the year after diagnosis of ASD in preschool-aged children. Data for 365 participants aged 2-4 years old who had been recently diagnosed with ASD and followed prospectively were obtained from the “Pathways To Better Outcomes in ASD Study”.</p> <p><strong>Methods:</strong> Study 1 aimed to determine whether social competence and structural language ability could be measured as distinct constructs that were invariant over time and between clinically relevant groups of young children with ASD. Study 2 modeled longitudinal reciprocal associations between these domains. Study 3 addressed the issue of variability and change within this sample, and tested whether baseline levels and rate of change in one domain were associated with subsequent growth in the other.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> Social competence and language ability constructs were measurably distinct and invariant in a young sample comprising verbal and non-verbal children with ASD. Only small reciprocal cascade effects were evident between social and language pathways. Levels of social competence at time of diagnosis were significantly associated with subsequent language growth.</p> <p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> In preschoolers with ASD, advantages in social competence as measured at time of diagnosis appear to “spill over” in a feed-forward cascade model to influence progress in language ability. Social competence and language ability then appear to develop along more specialized, less interrelated pathways.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Interactional and contextual models have been conceptually proposed in understanding parental influences on children. Yet, empirical model testing has been limited. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of parenting style on child social competence using structural equation modeling in a sample of 544 Chinese families with 6-9 years old children, mainly singleton, residing in Nanjing, China. Five latent models were tested: (a) the direct model between parenting style and child social competence, (b) child temperament as a moderator, (c) parent-child relationship as a mediator, (d) the interaction model between parenting style and family functioning, and (e) bidirectional models of parenting style concurrently with parent-child relationship, and family functioning predicting child social competence. Findings showed: (a) The direct relationship between parenting style and child social competence was significant in both parents with authoritative parenting style on the positive direction, whereas authoritarian and permissive parenting styles on the negative direction; (b) child temperament did not moderate parenting style on child social competence; (c) father-child relationship mediated paternal parenting style on child social competence, whereas maternal parenting style did not; (d) family functioning neither moderated nor mediated the relationship between parenting style and child social competence for both parents; and (e) The four-factor prediction models on child social competence turned out to be unidirectional. For the mothers, the best model was from family functioning to mother-child relationship, to maternal parenting style, and finally to child social competence. Maternal parenting style was the significant proximal factor. For the fathers, it was from family functioning to paternal parenting style, to father-child relationship, and then to child social competence. Father-child relationship had the direct impact, whereas the influence of paternal parenting style was distal through father-child relationship. Findings from this study suggest that the Chinese parents should use more authoritative and less authoritarian and permissive parenting, and develop good parent-child relationships in the daily interactions with their children. Future studies need to use larger and better data to validate these models, or to extend the findings with other important child variables to explore the child's active agency.

Les conflits dans les couples sont souvent perçus négativement et ayant un impact sur la qualité du couple et l'adaptation des enfants. En revanche, ce ne sont pas tous les conflits qui sont négatifs. En effet, dans un contexte où les parents utilisent des stratégies de résolution positives, les situations de conflits pourraient devenir un terrain d'apprentissage pour les jeunes enfants et leur permettent de réutiliser ces modèles afin d'être plus compétents socialement. La présente étude vise à évaluer le lien entre les stratégies de résolution de conflits conjugaux et la compétence sociale des enfants d'âge préscolaire en fonction du sexe du parent et du sexe de l'enfant. Les données ont été recueillies auprès de 160 familles ayant un enfant âgé entre 4 et 6 ans. Il s'agit d'un devis de recherche transversal. Les résultats montrent que les stratégies de résolution des conflits conjugaux des parents sont marginalement liées au niveau de compétence sociale de l'enfant, mais ce, uniquement pour le père. En outre, le sexe de l'enfant modère marginalement ce lien, les garçons étant plus compétents lorsqu'exposés au rapport élevé des stratégies positives du père. Une différence significative a été observée entre les garçons et les filles quant à leur niveau de compétence sociale, les filles étant plus compétentes socialement que les garçons. / In couples, conflict is often viewed negatively and affecting the quality of the relationship and children's adjustment. On the other hand, not all conflicts are negative. Indeed, in a context where parents use positive resolution strategies, conflicts can become a learning environment for young children and allow them to reuse these models to be more socially competent. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between marital conflict resolution strategies and the social competence of preschool children depending on the sex of the parent and the child's sex. Data were collected from 160 families with a child aged between 4 and 6 years old. This is a transversal research design. Results show marital conflict resolution strategies are marginally related to the level of social competence of the children, but only for the fathers. In addition, children's gender marginally moderate this relation, boys being more socially competent when more exposed to a high ratio of positive resolution strategies from their fathers. A significant difference was observed between boys and girls as to their level of social competence, girls being more competent socially than boys.