Emotion recognition skills in children with hearing loss: What is the role of language?

Abstract

Previous studies have found a deficit in emotion recognition skills in children with hearing loss linked to their linguistic development. Our aim is to explore how different linguistic-communicative skills influence the capacity to recognise emotions from faces, at different developmental points, in children with and without hearing loss. We administered language measures and a task of emotion recognition (ER) to 166 children (75 with hearing loss). Results show that ER was linked to various linguistic-communicative skills in children with hearing loss, whereas fewer connections existed in hearing children. As these relations varied with age, we discuss how the importance of the different linguistic and communicative skills for ER varies throughout development and as a function of hearing status