The nature and extent of emotion recognition and empathy impairments in children showing disruptive behaviour referred into a crime prevention programme

Abstract

Childhood disruptive behaviour has been linked to later antisocial and criminal behaviour. Emotion recognition and empathy impairments, thought to be caused by inattention to the eye region, are hypothesised to contribute to antisocial and criminal behaviour. This is the first study to simultaneously examine emotion recognition and empathy impairments, their relationship, and the mechanism behind these impairments, in children with disruptive behaviour. We hypothesised that children with disruptive behaviour would exhibit negative emotion recognition and cognitive and affective empathy impairments, but that these impairments would not be due to reduced attention to the eye region. We expected these emotion impairments to be driven by disruptive behaviour. We also expected a relationship between emotion recognition and cognitive empathy only. Ninety-two children with disruptive behaviour, who were participating in a police crime prevention programme and rated by their schoolteacher using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (DB; mean age 8.8 years, 80% male), took part. There was a comparison group of 58 typically developing children (TD; mean age 9.7 years, 78% male). All children completed emotion recognition and empathy tasks, both with concurrent eye tracking to assess social attention. Not only were DB children significantly impaired in negative emotion and neutral emotion recognition, and in cognitive and affective empathy compared to the TD children, but severity of disruptive behaviour also predicted intensity of emotion impairments. There were no differences in social attention to the eye region. Negative emotion recognition and empathy impairments are already present in an identifiable group of children displaying disruptive behaviour. These findings provide evidence to encourage the use of targeted interventions.

Improving emotion recognition is associated with subsequent mental health and well-being in children with severe behavioural problems

“…The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach [26] advocates the study of underlying and transdiagnostic processes involved in mental health problems and the development of personalised interventions targeting those with clear problems, rather than assuming that impaired processes are present in all those sharing a diagnosis or exhibiting similar behavioural problems. In line with this approach, it has been established that emotion recognition can be rapidly improved in children with behavioural problems [23]. Building on this work, in the current study we aimed to examine the longer-term effects of an emotion recognition training on behaviour and mental health 6 months later, as rated by teachers who were unaware which children had received emotion training.…”

Low Self-Esteem and Impairments in Emotion Recognition Predict Behavioural Problems in Children

“…The children in the BP group did not have a formal mental health diagnosis and their behavioural and/or emotional problems were confirmed by teacher report via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman 1997). Children scoring in above average range for conduct and/or peer problems (≥ 3 out of 10) and/or below average range for prosocial behaviour (≤ 5 out of 10) were eligible to be included in the BP group (see Hunnikin et al 2019, for a detailed description of the eligibility criteria). Children in the TD group were referred by their teachers for not showing behavioural or emotion problems.…”

“…The Facial Emotion Recognition (FER; Hunnikin et al 2019) test was used to measure children's ability to recognise faces displaying happy, sad, fearful, angry and neutral expressions. Children viewed 60 faces on a laptop displaying one of the five expressions at either a low or a high intensity.…”

Childhood conduct problems are associated with reduced white matter fibre density and morphology

“…There is considerable evidence that antisociality is characterised by emotional processing impairments, such as reduced empathy, lower physiological affective responsivity, diminished capacity to learn about punishment and reward, and emotional dysregulation (K. Blair, Morton, Leonard, & Blair, 2006;R. Blair, 1999;Fanti et al, 2019;Gao, Raine, Venables, Dawson, & Mednick, 2010;Hunnikin, Wells, Ash, & Van Goozen, 2019;Van Goozen, Fairchild, Snoek, & Harold, 2007;Van Langen, Wissink, Van Vugt, Van der Stouwe, & Stams, 2014). Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), studies have identified structural and functional abnormalities in limbic brain regions important for processing emotion, in particular the amygdala, and prefrontal regions implicated in affective decision-making, learning and regulation, such as the orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Baker, Clanton, Rogers, & De Brito, 2015;Coccaro, McCloskey, Fitzgerald, & Phan, 2007;Meyer-Lindenberg et al, 2006;Noordermeer, Luman, & Oosterlaan, 2016;Pardini, Raine, Erickson, & Loeber, 4 2014;Rogers & De Brito, 2016;Thomas et al, 2012).…”