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OBJECTIVE: Children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) often show cognitive and behavioral problems (Martin et al., 2011). Huijbregts et al. (2010) investigated cognitive problems in children with NF1 focusing on social information processing. They found that bottom-up as well as top-down processes are involved. The authors suggested that the deficits in social information processing might be linked to social behavioral problems (Huijbregts et al., 2010). To further investigate this issue, the aim of the present study is to assess the relation between social behavioral problems and deficits in emotion recognition. PARTICIPANTS AND METHOD: 14 children with NF1 between 5.00-13.00 years of age (6 boys, 8 girls; MAge=8.3, SDAge=2.8; MIQ=100.71, SDIQ=11,56) took part in our study. 6 children were 10 years and older, 8 children were younger than 10. Emotion recognition was assessed with the Dutch shortened version of the Facial Expression of Emotions – Stimuli and Tests (FEEST-36; original test by Young et al. 2002) and parents reported social behavioral problems on the Child Behavior Checklist 6-18 (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991). Data of the FEEST-36 were compared to an age- gender- and IQ-matched control group (n=28; 15 boys, 13 girls; MAge=8.1, SDAge=1,10; MIQ=104.93, SDIQ=10.6). RESULTS: There was no significant difference in facial emotion recognition between children with NF1 and typically developing children younger than 10. Children with NF1 of 10 years and older were significantly less accurate in recognizing anger, fear and sadness in facial emotions than typically developing children. Four parents reported problematic social behavior for their child on the CBCL. The social behavioral problems were significantly correlated with recognition of sadness in children with NF1 of 10 years and older. DISCUSSION: In our sample, emotion recognition in children with NF1 younger than 10 years was not different from typically developing children. This might indicate a low sensitivity of the FEEST-36. The test does not seem to be able to detect emotion recognition deficits in children with NF1 younger than 10 years. For children with NF1 older than 10 years of age, we found impaired fear recognition. Furthermore, we also found an impairment of recognition of anger and sadness. Especially the recognition of sadness is related to social behavioral problems. More research is needed on the development of social cognition in children with NF1 and the relation with behavioral problems in order to tailor intervention strategies to improve social functioning of these children.

OBJECTIVE: Facial emotion recognition is a crucial aspect of social cognition and deficits have been shown to be related to psychiatric disorders in adults and children. However, the development of facial emotion recognition is less clear (Herba & Philips, 2004) and an appropriate instrument to measure specific facial emotion recognition in the pediatric population is lacking. For adults, The Facial Expression of Emotions – Stimuli and Tests (FEEST; Young et al., 2002) has become a widely used instrument to assess emotion recognition, enabling clinicians to assess deficits in the recognition of specific emotions. We propose a Dutch shortened version of the FEEST (FEEST-36 by Veenstra, Huitema, & Aarnoudse, 2010) to investigate typical development of facial emotion recognition and for detecting emotion recognition difficulties in children with acquired brain injury. PARTICIPANTS AND METHOD: 111 normally developed children (50 boys, 61 girls) between 3.6-12.5 years of age participated (MAge=7.66, SDAge=2.5; MIQ=109.95, SDIQ=12.96) in this our study. The FEEST-36 consists of 36 black and white pictures of men and women expressing the six basic emotions: Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. The relationship between total scores, IQ, gender and age was investigated. RESULTS: A multiple linear regression analysis revealed that is a good predictor of the facial emotion recognition measured with the FEEST-36. Intelligence adds very little information to the model and gender does not predict facial emotion recognition in our sample. Looking at specific emotions, we see that recognition of disgust, fear, sadness and surprise is influenced by age. Younger children are significantly less accurate in recognizing those emotions. DISCUSSION: Our results show that there are significant age-related differences in facial emotion recognition. Happiness is recognized by children of all ages in our sample. Recognition of sadness and anger does not seem to change much between the ages 3.6 and 12.5. However, the recognition of surprise, disgust and fear increases evidently with age. A possible explanation might be that the recognition of these emotions relies on brain structures that continue to develop throughout childhood and adolescence (Thomas et al., 2007). Future studies in our group will focus on developing normative data for the FEEST-36 in order to make it available for use in clinical practice with pediatric patients.

Introduction Nassau and Drotar (1997) state that children with epilepsy often show emotional and behavioral problems. They also hypothesize that these problems may be caused by impaired social competences. Golouboff et al. (2008) show that in children with temporal lobe epilepsy, impaired recognition of fearful facial emotions is associated with deviant behavior. The present clinical study describes behavioral problems in children with epilepsy and investigates the relationship of these problems with recognition of fearful facial emotion expression. Method In the University medical center of Groningen, 55 children with epilepsy were seen by a neuropsychologist from 2007 to 2013. For 18 of them parents filled in the Child Behavior Checklist 6-18 (CBCL). A subgroup of children (3 boys, 4 girls, 7.3-13.2 years, M=10.34, SD=2.42) also completed a Dutch shortened version of the Facial Expression of Emotions - Stimuli and Tests by Young et al. (2002) (FEEST-36). These data were compared to a healthy control group. The relationship between T scores of the CBCL (social competences and all problem scales) and the fear recognition scores from the FEEST-36 was investigated. Results About half the children show deviant social competences and social problems. All parents stated at least one social problem and one problem with aggressive behavior. Children with epilepsy are less accurate than healthy children in recognizing fear. This result was not significant but recognition scores are significantly correlated with T scores of social problems, attention problems and thought problems. Conclusion The majority of children with epilepsy show social problems. In these children, impaired emotion recognition is related to behavioral problems. Especially the detection of fearful facial emotions is related to behavior. It seems that children who are less accurate in recognizing fear, show greater social problems and have more difficulties with attention, and thoughts than healthy children.

Introduction Facial emotion recognition is essential for social interaction. The development of emotion recognition abilities is not yet entirely understood (Tonks et al. 2007). Facial emotion recognition emerges gradually, with happiness recognized earliest (Herba & Phillips, 2004). The recognition of anger, fear and disgust, relying on brain regions that continue to develop during childhood and adolescence (Thomas et al., 2007), may develop latest. The aim of the present study is to investigate the normal development of facial emotion recognition and to develop a useful test for detecting emotion recognition difficulties in children with acquired brain injury. Method 100 normally developed children (49 boys, 51 girls) between 3.6-12.9 years of age participated (M=7.79, SD=2.75) in this cross-sectional study. The FEEST-36 is a Dutch shortened version of the computer based Facial Expression of Emotions – Stimuli and Tests by Young et al. (2002). It consists of 36 black and white pictures of men and women expressing the six basic emotions: Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. The relationship between total scores, IQ and age was investigated. Results Emotion recognition is significantly influenced by age. Especially, the recognition of fear, disgust and surprise improves with age. The results show that pre-school children younger than 5 years are significantly less accurate than children aged 5 to 10 years or children of 10 years and older in their recognition of emotions. There is no relationship with intelligence or sex. Conclusion Facial emotion recognition develops during childhood; especially the identification of fear, disgust and surprise is influenced by age. The FEEST-36 is hoped to be useful in detecting specific emotion recognition abnormalities in children and adolescents with acquired brain injury. The results are discussed in the light of the implications of the Dutch FEEST-36 in pediatric neuropsychological assessment of emotion recognition following acquired brain injury. References Herba, C., & Phillips, M. (2004). Annotation: Development of facial expression recognition from childhood to adolescence: Behavioural and neurological perspectives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(7), 1185-1198. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00316.x Thomas, L. A., De Bellis, M. D., Graham, R., & LaBar, K. S. (2007). Development of emotional facial recognition in late childhood and adolescence. Developmental Science, 10(5), 547-558. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00614.x Tonks, J., Williams, W. H., Frampton, I., Yates, P., & Slater, A. (2007). Assessing emotion recognition in 9-15-years olds: Preliminary analysis of abilities in reading emotion from faces, voices and eyes. Brain Injury, 21(6), 623-629. doi:10.1080/02699050701426865 Young, A., Perrett, D., Calder, A., Sprengelmeyer, R. & Ekman, P. (2002). Facial Expression of Emotion: Stimuli and Tests (FEEST) [testing programme] Pearson.