The association between PTSD and facial affect recognition

Williams, Christian; Milanak, Melissa E.; Judah, Matt R.; Berenbaum, Howard

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2018.04.055

Cited by 8 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 27 publications

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“…In support of the more generalized impairment among PTSD mothers, several studies have shown that adults with PTSD more specifically are significantly more likely to show difficulty in identifying emotions than non-traumatized controls generally (Freeman, Hart, Kimbrell, & Ross, 2009 ; Moser et al, 2015 ). An additional study showed that adults suffering from PTSD may have particular trouble with emotion recognition particularly when a facial expression is placed in an incongruent context, suggesting that affected individuals have a different way of processing emotional information (Williams, Milanak, Judah, & Berenbaum, 2018 ). Yet another study using eye-tracking showed that anxious avoidance of facial stimuli may account for this difference in emotional processing (Milanak, Judah, Berenbaum, Kramer, & Neider, 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of mothers’ IPV-PTSD on their capacity to predict their child’s emotional comprehension and its relationship to their child’s psychopathology

Perizzolo

Glaus

Stein

et al. 2022

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background Previous studies demonstrated that when the violence-exposed child becomes a mother and interacts with her own child during early sensitive periods for social-emotional development, she may have difficulties providing sensitive responsiveness to the child’s emotional communication. Such difficulties place the child’s development of emotional comprehension (EC) and related self-regulation at risk. The aim of this study was to examine how mothers’ interpersonal violence-related posttraumatic disorder (IPV-PTSD) would affect their children’s EC and their own ability to predict their children’s EC. We also investigated how mothers’ predictive ability would correlate with child psychopathology. Methods Sixty-one mother–child dyads (36 with IPV-PTSD) participated in this study. Children’s (mean age = 7.0 years, SD = 1.1) EC was assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (child TEC) and their psychopathology as reported by the mother was assessed with the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and as evaluated by a clinician using selected modules of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS). Mothers were measured for IPV-PTSD with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) and for their capacity to predict their child’s emotional comprehension (mother-responding-as-child TEC; mTEC). Results We found no significant between-group differences in children’s level of EC. Maternal PTSD was associated with lower scores on the mTEC, however. Reduced maternal scores on the mTEC were significantly associated with maternal report of increased aggressive child behaviour and with depression symptoms on the K-SADS. Further, scores on the mTEC interacted with maternal report of child aggression on child oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms on the K-SADS. Conclusion These findings support that improving maternal emotional comprehension may help reduce child risk for psychiatric morbidity in this population.

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