Associations Between Social Anxiety and Nonverbal Processing Skill in Preadolescent Boys and Girls

This study was designed to investigate the potential association between social anxiety and children's ability to decode nonverbal emotional cues. Participants were 62 children between 8 and 10 years of age, who completed self-report measures of social anxiety, depressive symptomatology, and nonspecific anxious symptomatology, as well as nonverbal decoding tasks assessing accuracy at identifying emotion in facial expressions and vocal tones. Data were analyzed with multiple regression analyses controlling for generalized cognitive ability, and nonspecific anxious and depressive symptomatology. Results provided partial support for the hypothesis that social anxiety would relate to nonverbal decoding accuracy. Difficulty identifying emotions conveyed in children's and adults' voices was associated with general social avoidance and distress. At higher levels of social anxiety, children more frequently mislabeled fearful voices as sad. Possible explanations for the obtained results are explored.     

The Emotional Experience and Expression of Anger: Children’s Perspectives

The purpose of this study was to explore and identify key themes related to a child’s experience of anger. The existing literature on children’s emotional experiences stems from adult perceptions and interpretations; this study was envisioned to investigate the experience of anger among children using their own words. Furthermore, this study was designed to illustrate a contextual perspective of children’s emotional knowledge, so that teachers, social workers, counsellors and other child mental health professionals may be able to relate and interpret children’s emotional experiences. Participants were male and female students, aged 8–9 years and in a regular grade three classroom within a community school. Through the use of semi-structured interview focus groups conducted over a span of 10 weeks, participants were invited to disclose their understandings of anger and how they experienced it. Results were analyzed via a content analysis that resulted in five themes. These themes consisted of understanding anger, origins of anger, consequences of anger, regulation and resolution of anger, and finally relations with others. Results and implications of the findings were discussed.     

Perception of Emotion: Measuring Decoding Accuracy of Adult Prosodic Cues Varying in Intensity

The purpose of the present study was to present a measure of the ability to decode emotion in the voices of adults. After describing the process of how the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy—Adult Prosody (DANVA2-AP) test was constructed, five propositions were developed to guide the gathering of appropriate construct validity evidence for the measure. Evidence from a series of studies provided support for all of the propositions. It was concluded that the DANVA2-AP had satisfactorily met the minimal requirements for construct validity.     

Intergroup Evaluations and Norms about Learning Ability

Children's evaluations of classmates with learning difficulties tend to be less positive than their evaluations of classmates without learning difficulties; but it is not clear if these evaluations are associated with age, group norms, and group identification. These associations were examined within the context of inclusive elementary school classrooms. Participants (N = 192) were asked about their attitudes and their peers' attitudes towards children with or without learning difficulties. They were also asked to evaluate fictional target children who gave biased or unbiased opinions about children with or without learning difficulties. Results showed that group identification was predicted by age and group judgment. Participants with high group identification and judgment scores in favour of children without learning difficulties were inclined to believe other children would be similarly biased. However, most participants preferred the target child who gave unbiased opinions. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.     

Individual differences in the nonverbal communication of affect: The diagnostic analysis of nonverbal accuracy scale

The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) was designed to measure individual differences in the accurate sending and receiving of nonverbal social information. The DANVA consists of four receptive and three expressive subtests that measure nonverbal processing accuracy in children from 6 to 10 years of age. Four propositions were offered to guide the gathering of construct validity data for the DANVA. In support of the propositions, researchers found that DANVA accuracy scores increased with age, were internally consistent and reliable over time, and snowed significant relationships with indices of personal and social adjustment and academic achievement but were not related to IQ. Evidence for construct validity was stronger for receptive, as compared to expressive, subtests. Future research should include additional populations of subjects and study of the impact of intensity of emotion being sent or received.     

The Nonverbal Decoding Ability of Children Exposed to Family Violence or Maltreatment: Prospective Evidence from a British Cohort

The prospective association between exposure to family violence or maltreatment in the first four years of life and nonverbal decoding ability at age 8.5 years was examined in a British birth cohort. Overall differences were very minor, except it was found that children exposed to maternal victimization were less accurate in decoding low intensity expressions of fear, than were children from nonviolent homes. Children from violent homes were also more likely to identify expressions of anger, fear, and sadness as happiness. Maltreated children showed a global deficit in decoding emotions, but only when presented as high intensity expressions. Whilst these results point to longitudinal associations between these variables, they do not discount the potential impact of third variables. Results are discussed in relation to current theoretical positions, and the need for further research.     

A Measure of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Children's Tone of Voice

This paper introduces a test of the ability to decode emotion of varying intensity in the voices of children. Construction of the measure, the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Child Paralanguage (DANVA2-CP), is described. An initial study using elementary-school-aged children found that accuracy scores increased with age, were internally consistent, and were correlated, as expected, with indices of personality and social competence. Data from 20 additional studies, using participants from across the age range, provided further evidence of construct validity for the DANVA2-CP. Based on the results, it was concluded that the DANVA2-CP may be an appropriate measure of the ability to identify emotion in children's paralinguistic presentations.     

Vocal and Facial Emotion Decoding Difficulties Relating to Social and Thought Problems: Highlighting Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Successful social interaction depends on the ability to decode emotion in the nonverbal behaviors of others. Because relationship difficulties are paramount in adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), we predicted that adolescents with SPD would (1) make more emotion decoding errors than adolescents with other personality disorders (OPD) or non-psychiatric controls (NPC); and (2) exhibit more social and thought problems than OPD or NPC adolescents. Further, we predicted greater emotion decoding errors for all adolescents would relate to concurrent and future social problems, thought problems, and social reasoning deficits. SPD adolescents made more errors than OPD and NPC adolescents in decoding voices but not faces (except in specific emotion categories). For all adolescents, vocal errors correlated with greater social problems, and facial and vocal errors correlated with greater thought difficulties concurrently and a year later.     

Kazakhstan's Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroad on the Great Silk Road

The Republic of Kazakhstan is developing a nonprofit sector, albeit slowly. It still suffers from the experience of 70 years of Communism but is now moving forward with development. This survey reviews the history, evolution, scope, and currency with a focus on the legal underpinnings of the nonprofit sector in Kazakhstan. In addition to discussing the traditions and cultures affecting development, the survey mainly concentrates on the legal and legislative obstacles that discourage rather than encourage more rapid development of the third sector in this Central Asian state.     

Perceived Family Climate of Students Deciding to Pursue Counseling

Abstract

It was hypothesized that perceived family-climate factors would differentiate between students who applied for therapy help and those who had not. Further, within the applied-for-therapy group, it was hypothesized that perceived family-climate would be related to therapy outcome. It was predicted and found that the students applying for therapy were lower on the relationship and personal growth dimensions, but higher on the control dimension of family climate, than college students in general. Within the students applying for therapy it was found that perceived higher relationship and higher control dimension scores were related to longer time spent in therapy and to therapists' more favorable evaluation of the therapy experience. Suggestions were made for practical application of family-climate information to therapy.