Using a game-like task as an assessment of emotion recognition in children.

Facial emotion recognition, the ability to interpret facial expression of emotion, is a core sociocognitive ability which supports successful social interactions and the development of more complex skills in social cognition such as empathy. Deficits in this area can have a negative impact upon children’s performance socially and in education. Despite the importance of this skill most tests of emotion recognition were designed for adults without adaption for children's developmental stage. This study is an exploratory, first phase development of a new test of emotion recognition for children; the Alien Quiz. This test includes two novel additions to emotion recognition assessment for children: a game-like format in the Guess the Alien subtest, and culturally neutral emotion stimuli. Twenty-five children from a mainstream primary school took part in the study to understand whether children apply similar strategies in the Alien Quiz and whether the Alien Quiz could be used as a measure of emotion recognition. Preliminary scoring was developed for allsubtests for the task, novel methods of scoring were developed for the game-like task, traditional scoring was adapted for the other subtests. Content analysis of the Guess the Alien subtest indicated that children used similar patterns of responding within the task and relied upon emotion as a means of categorisation. Descriptive statistics showed that children’s accuracy in identifying core emotions using novel cartoon stimuli was similar to accuracy reported in previous studies. Children expressed that they enjoyed the game-like task more than another task. With amendments noted in the limitations of this study, the Alien Quiz has potential to be used as a measure of emotion recognition for children. Continued research is required in order to assess validity, norms, and reliability of the task prior to its use clinically.