THANK YOU!

Everyone at the Child Emotion Center would like to thank the children, parents, and teachers who participated in our study.

We would also like to thank Kid Zone and the other after school programs for their support and cooperation.

The data collected in this study was used in two presentations that were presented at the 2005 Western Psychological Association Conference in Portland, Oregon. The findings will also be published in professional journals.

For more information about the presentations, including data and resources, please contact Kristy McDonald at kristy.mcdonald@asu.edu

OVERVIEW OF STUDY

• The study included 96 participants aged 6-7 from various Kid-Zones and other after-school programs.
• Our goal was to better understand children’s emotions and how they relate to health.
• The Berkley Puppet Interview and Emotion Modulated Startle were conducted while the children were attending their after-school program. The assessments took around 1 hour to complete. Parental consent was received for each participant and every child that participated received a free t-shirt.

ASSESSMENTS

Berkley Puppet Interview:

We interviewed children with two puppets that asked questions about how the child behaved at school and home. This assessment was used to learn more about when the child is happy or sad.

For Example: One puppet would say, “I worry about doing things right” and the other puppet would say “I don’t worry about doing things right”. The child would then identify with the puppet that is most like them.

Emotion Modulated Startle:

This is a collection of 10 age-appropriate video clips that were chosen to elicit emotion. Examples of these movie clips are Denise the Menace and The Little Rascals. Each clip contained 3-4 acoustic probes, which were little bleeps of white noise. Usually this noise would cause the child to blink. Later this eye blink was coded to determine its intensity.

Health and Behavior Questionnaire:

Parent and teachers filled out this questionnaire about the child to give us more information about the child’s health and behaviors.

FINDINGS

We found that children who had more positive emotions were less likely to blink during the startle probes.

It was also found that the majority of children did not express fear facially when watching the video clips. However, smiling and laughter were shown during the funny/happy clips.

Child anxiety was also assessed. Anxiety can be defined as worry or concern. It was found that child, parents and teachers often do not agree when it comes to reporting anxiety. Interestingly it was found that when teachers reported child anxiety, the parents reported child depression or sadness.

Finally, there was an association found between the child’s report of separation anxiety and their intensity of blinking during the startle clips. Often the teacher and parent were not reporting anxiety when the child was displaying anxiety. This stresses the need to obtain the child’s report of anxiety when necessary.