Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Children with mixed language disorder do not discriminate accurately facial identity when expressions change

  • ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION
  • Published:
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We investigated the recognition of pairs of faces (same or different facial identities and expressions) in two groups of 14 children aged 6–10 years, with either an expressive language disorder (ELD), or a mixed language disorder (MLD), and two groups of 14 matched healthy controls. When looking at their global performances, children with either expressive (ELD) or MLD have few differences from controls in either face or emotional recognition. At contrary, we found that children with MLD, but not those with ELD, take identical faces to be different if their expressions change. Since children with mixed language disorders are socially more impaired than children with ELD, we think that these features may partly underpin the social difficulties of these children.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. American Psychiatric association, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  2. Beitchman JH, Wilson B, Brownlie EB, Walters H, Inglis A, Lancee W (1996) Long-term consistency in speech/language profiles: II. Behavioral, emotional, and social outcomes. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 35(6):815–825

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. De Haan M, Nelson A (1998) Discrimination and categorisation of facial expressions of emotion during infancy. In: Slater A (ed) Perceptual Development: visual, auditory, and speech perception in infancy. Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group. pp 287–309

  4. Dupont H, Gardner OS, Brody SS (1979) Towards affective development, instructional material. American Guidance Service, Circle Pines, MN

    Google Scholar 

  5. Fox CJ, Barton JJS (2007) What is adapted in face adaptation? The neural representations of expression in the human visual system. Brain Res 1127:80–89

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Gauger LM, Lombardino LJ, Leonard CMB (1997) Brain morphology in children with specific language impairment. J Speech Lang Hear Res 40(6):1272–1284

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Haxby VH, Hoffman EA, Gobbini I (2000) The distributed human neural system for face perception. Trends Cogn Sci 4(6):223–233

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Herbert MR, Ziegler DA, Deutsch CK, O’Brien LM, Kennedy DN, Filipek PA, Bakardjiev AI, Hodgson J, Takeoka M, Makris N, Caviness VS Jr (2005) Brain asymmetries in autism and developmental language disorder: a nested whole-brain analysis. Brain 128:213–226

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Hobson RP, Ouston J, Lee A (1988b) What’s in a face? The case of autism. Br J Psychol 79:441–453

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hobson RP (1991) Methodological issues for experiments on autistic individuals’ perception and understanding of emotion. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 32(7):1135–1158

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Hoffman EA, Haxby VH (2000) Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nat Neurosci 3 (1):80–84

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Lai Z (1992) A neuropsychological test of cortical circuitry subserving affective processing in the developing human brain. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minneapolis, Minneapolis

  13. Lord C, Pickles A (1996) Language level and non-verbal social-communicative behaviours in autistic and language-delayed children. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 35(11):1542–1550

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Mawhood L, Howlin P, Rutter M (2000) Autism and developmental receptive language disorder—a comparative follow-up in early adult life. I Cognitive and language outcomes. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 41(5):547–559

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. O’Toole AJ, Roark DA, Abdi H (2002) Recognizing moving faces: a psychological and neural synthesis. Trends Cogn Sci 6(6):261–266

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Ozonoff S, Pennington BF, Rogers SJ (1990) Are there emotion perception deficits in young children with autism? J Child Psychol Psychiatry 31:343–61

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Pascalis O, de Schonen S (1994) Recognition memory in 3-to-4-day-old human neonates. Neuroreport 8 5(14):1721–1724

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Paul R, Cohen DJ, Caramulo BK (1983) A longitudinal study of patients with severe developmental disorders of language learning. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 22(6):525–534

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Robel L, Ennouri K, Piana H, Vaivre-Douret L, Perier A, Flament M, Mouren-Siméoni M-C (2004) Discrimination of face identities and expressions in children with autism: same or different? Eur J Child Adolesc Psychiatry 13:227–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Shapiro EG, Hugues JG, August GJ, Bloomquist ML (1993) Processing of emotional information in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Dev Neuropsychol 9:207–224

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Toppelberg CO, Shapiro T (2000) Language disorders: a 10-year research update review. J Am Acad Child Adol Psychiatry 39:143–152

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. APHP, Service de pédopsychiatrie, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, 149-161 rue de Sèvres, 75015, Paris, France

    Laurence Robel MD, PhD, Laurence Vaivre-Douret PhD, Hélène Piana & Bernard Golse MD, PhD

  2. INSERM U669, Paris, Univ Paris-Sud and Univ Paris-Descartes, UMR-S0669, Paris, France

    Laurence Robel MD, PhD, Laurence Vaivre-Douret PhD, Xavier Neveu, Antoine Perier, Bruno Falissard MD, PhD & Bernard Golse MD, PhD

  3. Univ Paris 10, Nanterre, and APHP, Port-Royal Cochin Hospital, Paris, France

    Laurence Vaivre-Douret PhD

Authors
  1. Laurence Robel MD, PhD
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Laurence Vaivre-Douret PhD
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Xavier Neveu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hélène Piana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Antoine Perier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Bruno Falissard MD, PhD
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Bernard Golse MD, PhD
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laurence Robel MD, PhD.

Additional information

We thank S. Hugues and E. Shapiro for providing us with the MNTAP. We thank the children and their parents, for their participation to the study. This work was supported by the “Fondation de France”.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Robel, L., Vaivre-Douret, L., Neveu, X. et al. Children with mixed language disorder do not discriminate accurately facial identity when expressions change. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 17, 507–515 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0694-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0694-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation