Click here to download

The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) for children aged 3 to 10: Factorial structure, normative scores and use in typical and atypical assessment
Journal Title: RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA  
Author/s: Ilaria Grazzani, Valeria Cavioni , Veronica Ornaghi, Alessandro Pepe 
Year:  2020 Issue: 3 Language: Italian 
Pages:  21 Pg. 907-927 FullText PDF:  313 KB
DOI:  10.3280/RIP2020-003006
(DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation:  clicca qui   and here 


This paper is aimed at providing further psychometric robustness to the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), a standardized tool for assessing emotion comprehension in childhood. The study explores the factorial structure, gender and age invariance in a large sample of children from Northern and Central Italy (N = 1,478, M = 755; F = 723) aged 3 to 10 years, identifying the pattern of age-normative development across six-month intervals. The confirmatory factorial analysis supports the original psychometric structure of the TEC. Implications for typical and atypical assessment and for research purpose are discussed.
Keywords: Test of Emotion Comprehension, structural equation model, normative scores, gender invariance, typical and atypical assessment

  1. Albanese, O., & Molina, P. (2008, Eds.). Lo sviluppo della comprensione delle emozioni e la sua valutazione. La standardizzazione italiana del Test di Comprensione delle Emozioni (TEC). Milano: Unicopli.
  2. American Psychiatric Association (2014). DSM-5. Manuale diagnostico e statistico dei disturbi mentali (5th ed.). Milano: Raffaello Cortina.
  3. Ashwin, C., Chapman, E., Colle, L., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Impaired recognition of negative basic emotions in autism: A test of the amygdala theory. Social Neuroscience, 1(3-4), 349-363., DOI: 10.1080/17470910601040772
  4. Astington, J.W., Harris, P. L., & Olson, D.R. (1988). Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. Bender, P. K., Pons, F., Harris, P. L., Esbjørn, B. H., & Reinholdt-Dunne, M. L. (2015). Emotion understanding in clinically anxious children: A preliminary investigation. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1916.
  6. Browne, M.W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K.A Bollen & J.S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136-162). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
  7. Byrne, B.M. (2004). Testing for multi-group invariance using AMOS Graphics: A road less traveled. Structural Equation Modeling, 11(2), 272-300.
  8. Chen, F.F. (2007). Sensitivity of goodness of fit indexes to lack of measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 14(3), 464-504., DOI: 10.1080/10705510701301834
  9. Conte, E., Ornaghi, V., Grazzani, I., Pepe, A., & Cavioni, V. (2019). Emotion knowledge, theory of mind, and language in young children: Testing a comprehensive conceptual model. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2144.
  10. Denham, S.A., Ferrier, D.E., Howarth, G.Z., Herndon, K.J., & Bassett, H.H. (2016). Key considerations in assessing young children’s emotional competence. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46(3), 299-317., DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2016.1146659
  11. Edwards, J. R., & Bagozzi, R. P. (2000). On the nature and direction of relationships between constructs and measures. Psychological Methods, 5(2), 155–174., DOI: 10.1037/1082-989X.5.2.155
  12. Fabrigar, L.R., Wegener, D.T., MacCallum, R.C., & Strahan, E.J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272-299., DOI: 10.1037/1082-989X.4.3.272
  13. Fidalgo, A.M., Tenenbaum, H.R., & Aznar, A. (2018). Are there gender differences in emotion comprehension? Analysis of the test of emotion comprehension. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(4), 1065-1074.
  14. French, B.F., & Finch, W.H. (2008). Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis: Locating the invariant referent sets. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 15(1), 96-113., DOI: 10.1080/10705510701758349
  15. Göbel, A., Henning, A., Möller, C., & Aschersleb, G. (2016). The relationship between emotion comprehension and internalizing and externalizing behavior in 7- to 10-year-old children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7:1917.
  16. Grazzani, I. (2014). Psicologia dello sviluppo emotivo. Bologna: Il Mulino.
  17. Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., & Brockmeier, J. (2016). Conversation on mental states at nursery: promoting social cognition in early childhood. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13(5), 563-581., DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2015.1127803
  18. Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., & Riva Crugnola, C. (2015). Emotion comprehension and attachment: A conversational intervention with school-aged children. Revue Européenne de Psychologies Appliquée. 65(6), 267-274., DOI: 10.1016/j.erap.2015.10.004.
  19. Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., Conte, E., Pepe, A., & Caprin, C. (2018). The relation between emotion understanding and theory of mind in children aged 3 to 8: The key role of language. Frontiers in Psychology, 9:724.
  20. Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., & Anderson, R.E. (2010). Multivariate data analysis, 7th Edition. London: Pearson.
  21. Harris, P.L. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
  22. Harris, P.L. (2008). Children's understanding of emotion. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 320-331). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
  23. Harris, P.L., de Rosnay, M., & Pons, F. (2016). Understanding emotions. In L. Feldman Barrett, M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (4th ed., pp. 293-306). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
  24. Harris, P.L., de Rosnay, M., Pons, F. (2005). Language and children’s understanding of mental state. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 69-73.
  25. Homer, B.D., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2005, Eds.). The development of social cognition and communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
  26. Horn, J.L. (1991). Discussion of the issues of factorial invariance. In L. M. Collins & J. L. Horn (Eds.), Best methods for the analysis of change (pp. 114-125). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  27. Horn, J.L., & McArdle, J.J. (1992). A practical and theoretical guide to measurement invariance in aging research. Experimental Aging Research, 18(3-4), 117-144., DOI: 10.1080/03610739208253916
  28. Hu, L., & Bentler, P.M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1-55., DOI: 10.1080/10705519909540118
  29. Kasari, C., Freeman, S., & Hughes, M. (2001). Emotion recognition by children with Down syndrome. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 106(1), 59-72., DOI: 10.1352/0895-8017
  30. Kline, R. (2013). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In Y. Petscher, C. Schatschneider & D. L. Compton (Eds.), Applied quantitative analysis in education and the social sciences (pp. 183-217). New York: Routledge.
  31. Laugen, J.N., Jacobsen, K.H., Rieffe, C., & Wichstrøm, L. (2017). Emotion understanding in preschool children with mild-to-severe hearing loss. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 22(2), 155-163.
  32. Mancini, P., Giallini, I., Prosperini, L., D’alessandro, H.D., Guerzoni, L., Murri, A., Cuda, D., Ruoppolo, G., De Vincentiis, M., & Nicastri, M., (2016). Level of emotion comprehension in children with mid to long term cochlear implant use: How basic and more complex emotion recognition relates to language and age at implantation. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 87, 219-232.
  33. Mardia, K.V. (1970). Measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis with applications. Biometrika, 57(3), 519-530., DOI: 10.2307/2334770
  34. Marino, F., Chilà, P., Trusso Sfrazzetto, S., Carrozza, C., Crimi, I., Failla, C., Busà, M., Bernava, G., Tartarisco, G., Vagni, D., Rutal L., & Pioggia, G. (2019). Outcomes of a robot-assisted social-emotional understanding. Intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
  35. Mokken, R. J. (1971). A theory and procedure of scale analysis. Paris: Mouton The Hague.
  36. Morin, A.J.S., Marsh, H.W., & Nagengast, B. (2013). Exploratory structural equation modeling. In G. R. Hancock & O. M. Mueller (Eds.), Structural equation modeling: A second course (pp. 395-436). Charlotte, CN: Information Age Publishing.
  37. Ornaghi, V., Grazzani, I., & Brockmeier, J. (2014). Enhancing social cognition by training children in emotion understanding: a primary school study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 119, 26-39.
  38. Ornaghi, V., Pepe, A., Agliati, A. & Grazzani, I. (2019). The contribution of emotion knowledge, language ability, and maternal emotion socialization style to explaining toddlers’ emotion regulation. Social Development, 28(3), 581-598.
  39. Penny, K.I. (1996). Appropriate critical values when testing for a single multivariate outlier by using the Mahalanobis distance. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C, 45(1), 73-81., DOI: 10.2307/2986224
  40. Pepe, A., Addimando, L., & Veronese, G. (2017). Measuring teacher job satisfaction: Assessing invariance in the teacher job satisfaction scale (TJSS) across six countries. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 13(3), 396-416.
  41. Pochon, R., & Declercq, C. (2014). Emotional Lexicon Understanding and Emotion Recognition: A Longitudinal Study in Children with Down Syndrome, Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 26, 549-563. DOI 10.1007/s10882-014-9380-6.
  42. Pons, F., & Harris, P. L. (2019). Children’s understanding of emotions or the “error” of Pascal. In V. LoBue, K. Perez-Edgar & K. Buss (Eds.), Handbook of emotional development (pp. 431-449). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
  43. Pons, F., & Harris, P.L. (2000). Test of Emotion Comprehension - TEC. Oxford, United Kingdom: University of Oxford.
  44. Pons, F., de Rosnay, M., Bender, P.K., Doudin, P., Harris, P. L., & Giménez-Dasì, M. (2014). The impact of abuse and learning difficulties on emotion understanding in late childhood and early adolescence. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 175(4), 301-317., DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2014.903224
  45. Pons, F., Harris, P.L., & de Rosnay, M. (2004). Emotion comprehension between 3 and 11 years: Developmental periods and hierarchical organization. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1(2), 127-152., DOI: 10.1080/17405620344000022
  46. Rump, K. M., Giovannelli, J.L., Minshew, N.J., & Strauss, M.S. (2009). The development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism. Child Development, 80(5): 1434-1447.
  47. Salomone, E., Bulgarelli, D., Thommen, E., Rossini, E., & Molina P. (2019). Role of age and IQ in emotion understanding in Autism Spectrum Disorder: implications for educational interventions. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 34(3), 383-392., DOI: 10.1080/08856257.2018.1451292
  48. Uljarevic, M., & Hamilton, A. (2012). Recognition of emotions in autism: a formal meta-analysis. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 43(7),1517-1526.
  49. Woolfe, T., Want, S.C., & Siegal, M. (2002). Signposts to development: theory of mind in deaf children. Child Development, 73(3), 768-778., DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00437
  50. Yuill, N., & Little, S. (2018). Thinking or feeling? An exploratory study of maternal scaffolding, child mental state talk, and emotion understanding in language-impaired and typically developing school-aged children. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(2) 261–283.

Ilaria Grazzani, Valeria Cavioni , Veronica Ornaghi, Alessandro Pepe, The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) for children aged 3 to 10: Factorial structure, normative scores and use in typical and atypical assessment in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 3/2020, pp. 907-927, DOI:10.3280/RIP2020-003006

   

FrancoAngeli is a member of Publishers International Linking Association a not for profit orgasnization wich runs the CrossRef service, enabing links to and from online scholarly content