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Background Effective use of cognitive reappraisal strategies for emotion regulation improves throughout adolescence and promotes good mental health. Language skills may partially drive improvements in reappraisal efficacy, meaning children with neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language may not learn to regulate emotions as effectively as their peers. Method Data are from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES); a large, population derived cohort of children with diverse language and cognitive skills. We tested whether language skills at school entry predicted success in regulating negative emotions at age 10-11 using a temporal distancing strategy, in a task that utilised hypothetical distressing scenarios. We additionally compared children that met the criteria for Language Disorder (LD) in Year 1 to children with typical language, on their temporal distancing performance. Results Across the whole sample (N = 344), language skills at school entry predicted emotion regulation success in Year 6 (β = .23), over and above the concurrent association between language and regulation success. A quarter of children with LD were unable to complete the temporal distancing task. These children had more severe language difficulties, lower non-verbal IQ and more comorbid conditions. There was no evidence that children with LD that could engage in the task were less successful in using the temporal distancing strategy to reduce negative emotions compared to peers with typical language. Discussion There is a longitudinal relationship between language skills at school entry and the ability to use reappraisal for emotion regulation in early adolescence. This suggests that language may help children learn how to effectively regulate their emotions. Many children with LD were unable to participate in the task. This has implications for clinicians addressing mental health needs for children with neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language, as conversations about emotions and emotion regulation are an integral part of therapy.

UNSTRUCTURED Interoception has increasingly been the focus of psychiatric research, due to its hypothesised role in mental health. Existing interoceptive tasks are often burdensome and require specialised equipment, limiting their usage in vulnerable populations. We report on the development of the CARdiac Elevation Detection (CARED) task. Participants’ heart rate is recorded by a wearable device connected to a mobile application. Notifications are sent to participants’ mobile throughout the day over a period of 4 weeks. Participants are asked to state whether their heart rate is higher than usual, rate their confidence and describe the activity they were involved in when the notification occurred. Data (N=30) revealed that ⅓ of the sample was classified as interoceptive and that participants presented overall good insight into their interoceptive abilities. Given its ease of administration and accessibility, the CARED task has the potential to be a significant asset for psychiatric and developmental research.

Interoception has historically been assessed using behavioural tests of accuracy, self-report measures or through the characterisation of neural signals underlying interoceptive processing. More recent conceptualisations of interoception incorporate interoceptive attention and higher-order measures related to the interpretation of interoceptive signals. At present, these interoceptive dimensions are largely assessed in isolation, yet this fails to capture the complexity of interoception. Comprehensive assessment across interoceptive dimensions can determine the full operation of general interoceptive function. Current work suggests that these interoceptive processes may be dissociable across dimensions and bodily axes, with differential mapping to cognitive and emotion processing. To characterise differences in interoceptive profiles, all interoceptive dimensions can be assessed within individuals, both within a single bodily axis (e.g., cardiac) or across bodily axes. Future work can better delineate how these interoceptive measures correspond to different types of processing. Comprehensive interoceptive assessment can help isolate selective interoceptive disruptions in different clinical conditions.

Interoception, namely the perception of the body's internal states, has increasingly been the focus of psychiatric research, due to its hypothesised role in mental health disturbances. Nevertheless, existing tasks of interoception are often long, burdensome and require specialised equipment to be carried out, thus limiting the possibility of conducting studies in vulnerable populations. We report on the development and proof of concept testing of a novel interoceptive task, namely the CARdiac Elevation Detection (CARED) task. Participants’ heart rate is recorded by a wearable device connected to a mobile application. Notifications are sent to participants’ mobile based on an algorithm optimised to send at least 6 notifications per day at different heart rate values throughout the day, over a period of at least 4 weeks. Participants are asked to state whether their heart rate is higher than usual, rate how confident they are in their answer and provide a brief description of the activity they were involved in when the notification occurred. Data from 30 participants revealed that approximately ⅓ of the sample was classified as being interoceptive (in line with previous findings) and that participants presented overall good insight into their interoceptive abilities. Given its ease of administration and accessibility, the CARED task has the potential to be a significant asset for psychiatric and developmental research.