READING and FEELING: the effects of a literature-based intervention designed to increase emotional competence in second and third graders

Abstract

Emotional competence has an important influence on development in school. We hypothesized that reading and discussing children’s books with emotional content increases children’s emotional competence. To examine this assumption, we developed a literature-based intervention, named READING and FEELING, and tested it on 104 second and third graders in their after-school care center. Children who attended the same care center but did not participate in the emotion-centered literary program formed the control group (n = 104). Our goal was to promote emotional competence and to evaluate the effectiveness of the READING and FEELING program. Emotional competence variables were measured prior to the intervention and 9 weeks later, at the end of the program. Results revealed significant improvements in the emotional vocabulary, explicit emotional knowledge, and recognition of masked feelings. Regarding the treatment effect for detecting masked feelings, we found that boys benefited significantly more than girls. These findings underscore the assumption that children’s literature is an appropriate vehicle to support the development of emotional competence in middle childhood.

An Innovative Approach to Development of Social Abilities in Individuals with Autism: A Pilot Study

“…All four young adults are experts in technology and learn in autodidactic way, but they show social and emotional deficits. Kumschick and collaborators highlighted the importance of emotional competence as an ability that is teachable and learnable [28]. We believe that the use of software that focuses on social and emotional relationships, such as "The Transporters", could help children with ASD improve their social competence [29].…”

“…Recent studies showed that children with a high level of emotional competence are more successful at interacting with their peer group [28,31,32]. On the contrary, children with a low level of emotional knowledge are often rejected by peers and can develop social anxiety and behaviour problems [28,33].…”

“…Improve the ability of empathic involvement in others' emotional experience; 3. Improve the capacity for adaptive coping with aversive or distressing emotions by using self-regulatory strategies [28]. 4.…”

“…4. Increase awareness that the structure of relationships is largely defined by how emotions are communicated within the relationship [28]. 5.…”

Die semantische Repräsentation von Emotionsbegriffen bei Kindern im Grundschulalter

“…B. Kumschick et al, 2014) kann somit der Verbesserung sowohl sprachlicher als auch emotionaler Kompetenzen dienen.…”