Sturrock Alexandra, Freed Jenny
School of Health Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 31;13:982676. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.982676. eCollection 2022.
Vocabulary of emotion is integral to emotional development and emotional intelligence is associated with improved mental health outcomes. Many language disordered groups experience emotional difficulties; Developmental Language Disorders, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and autism. However, (as in the case of autism) research tends to focus on assessing recognition of emotional states, rather than exploring labeling skills. Where labeling is assessed, measures have focused on early-acquired vocabulary (happy, sad, angry) or self/parent reporting. To date, no objective assessment has been made of vocabulary of emotion across childhood.
This study uses an experimental psycholinguistic measure, The Emotion Vocabulary: Expressive and Receptive ability measure (EVER) which includes two tasks (receptive vocabulary and word generation/expressive vocabulary). This measure has capacity to demonstrate vocabulary growth across age groups. 171 participants (5.0-13.11 years) completed The EVER Measure, alongside two closely matched standardized measures of basic language: BPVS (receptive vocabulary task) and CELF (word-association task). Assessments were completed online and (COVID testing restrictions dependent).
As predicted, children's accuracy increased on both receptive and expressive emotion vocabulary tasks, in line with age at time of testing. EVER scores were significantly predicted by age and correlated with matched basic language scores. Secondary analysis provided preliminary findings on age of acquisition for specific emotion vocabulary items.
The findings consequently demonstrate proof of concept for the use of The EVER Measure in assessing emotional vocabulary across childhood. This study provides important preliminary data on generating and recognizing emotion labels across typical child development. Critically, it extends current knowledge on emotion vocabulary acquisition into middle childhood, where linguistic ability is relatively mature. As such, findings have implications for research with potential clinical application in the assessment of older children, with either language or emotional differences or both. Findings demonstrate the need for a standardized tool, and its potential application in research and clinical practice is explored. A large-scale study offering proof of concept and reliability of The EVER Measure is indicated.
情感词汇对于情感发展至关重要，而情商与改善心理健康结果相关。许多语言障碍群体都存在情感方面的困难，如发育性语言障碍、注意力缺陷多动障碍和自闭症。然而，（就自闭症而言）研究往往侧重于评估对情绪状态的识别，而非探索标注技能。在评估标注技能时，相关测量主要集中在早期习得的词汇（高兴、悲伤、愤怒）或自我/家长报告上。迄今为止，尚未对儿童期的情感词汇进行客观评估。
本研究采用一种实验性心理语言学测量工具，即情感词汇：表达与接受能力测量工具（EVER），它包括两项任务（接受性词汇和单词生成/表达性词汇）。该测量工具能够展示不同年龄组的词汇增长情况。171名参与者（年龄在5.0至13.11岁之间）完成了EVER测量，同时还完成了两项与之紧密匹配的基本语言标准化测量：BPVS（接受性词汇任务）和CELF（单词联想任务）。评估在网上完成，（取决于新冠病毒检测限制）。
正如预期的那样，儿童在接受性和表达性情感词汇任务上的准确率随着测试时的年龄增长而提高。年龄能够显著预测EVER得分，且该得分与匹配的基本语言得分相关。二次分析提供了关于特定情感词汇项目习得年龄的初步研究结果。
因此，研究结果证明了使用EVER测量工具评估儿童期情感词汇的概念验证。本研究提供了关于在典型儿童发育过程中生成和识别情感标签的重要初步数据。至关重要的是，它将目前关于情感词汇习得的知识扩展到了童年中期，此时语言能力相对成熟。因此，研究结果对针对年龄较大儿童（存在语言或情感差异或两者皆有）的研究具有潜在临床应用意义。研究结果表明需要一种标准化工具，并探讨了其在研究和临床实践中的潜在应用。一项大规模研究表明需要对EVER测量工具进行概念验证和可靠性验证。
