La evaluación de la percepción de la comunicación emocional de los padres en niños desde la neuropsicología Translated title: Assessment of the children's perception of the emotional communication of their parents from a neuropsychological perspective

Abstract

La calidad de las relaciones interpersonales, incluyendo la interpretación de intenciones y emociones de los otros, cumple un rol fundamental en el desarrollo del niño. Por ello, resulta importante comprender cómo se desarrolla el proceso de adquisición de las competencias emocionales que se refieren a las habilidades que permiten cumplir eficazmente objetivos adaptativos en situaciones de excitación emocional y se reflejan en la capacidad para manejar las emociones propias, resultando en una autoestima mejorada y una resiliencia adaptativa al enfrentarse a circunstancias estresantes. Dada la importancia de las relaciones familiares para el desarrollo de las emociones, la capacidad para reconocerlas y expresarlas, el objetivo del presente trabajo es presentar los estudios psicométricos realizados de un nuevo instrumento, el Cuestionario para evaluar la Percepción que los niños de 5 años tienen de la Comunicación Emocional de sus Padres (CPCEP), en sus versiones madre y padre. Para su estudio se comparó un grupo de niños en riesgo por pobreza con un grupo de niños sin riesgo ambiental, haciendo una lectura neuropsicológica de los resultados. Se trabajó con 220 niños de 5 años y de ambos sexos: 110 en situación de extrema pobreza que eran alumnos de una escuela ubicada en una villa de emergencia (San Isidro - Provincia de Buenos Aires) y un grupo control integrado por 110 niños de clase media urbana, que concurrían a colegios de la Ciudad Autónom a de Buenos Aires (República Argentina), apareados por edad con los anteriores. Se espera que los resultados obtenidos aporten datos empíricos que ayuden a predecir y prevenir trastornos emocionales y conductuales, así como problemas de aprendizaje.

Translated abstract

The quality of interpersonal relationships, including the interpretation of others' intentions and emotions, plays a fundamental roll in the child's development. Therefore, it is important to understand how the process of acquisition of the emotional competences takes place. This is, the capacity of accomplishing a desired outcome in emotion-eliciting encounters, that are shown in the ability to handle ones owns emotions, which results in improved self-esteem and in adaptative resilience when dealing with stressful circumstances. Given the importance of family relationships in the development of emotions, this is, in the ability to recognize, control and express them, the aim of this work is to present the psychometric studies of the questionnaire (CPCEP) built to assess the perception that 5 years old children have about the emotional communication of their parents, analyzing separately the results for mothers and fathers. A group of children at risk for poverty was compared with a group of children without risk for poverty, making a neuropsychological analysis of the results. The data was collected from a sample of 220 5-years old children: 110 living in poor conditions from the one scholl (La Cava, Buenos Aires), and 110 middle class children, attending to schools from Buenos Aires City, which acted as control group. The questionnaire takes into account the emotions of joy, interest, concern, patience and anger that the child perceives in his / her parents. The child is also asked to answer how is it that he / she realizes that his / her mother and father feels that particular emotion. In the analysis of the results, it was considered through which of the communicational channels the children perceived the emotions; this is, verbal, facial, behavioral or vocal. It was taken into account if the child could not explain how he perceived the emotional state of his / her parent. Analysis of the data from the two forms of the questionnaire included response statistics, checks of internal consistency using Cronbach´s coefficient alpha and an exploratory factor analysis to identify the components within each scale. The study of internal consistency using Cronbach's coefficient alpha shows acceptable levels for both samples. In the study of the validity of the scale, the factorial structure was clear in both versions, allowing to establish theoretical and psychological dimensions, giving the questionnaire construct validity. The results of the factor analysis performed to determine the factor structure of the scale for both forms of the instrument show the existence of two factors, with different configuration for children with and without risk for poverty. This is why they were analyzed separately. The factors found indicate that the questionnaire assesses the perception of a mother and a father with expressive and comprehensive characteristics for children without risk for poverty. For children at risk it assesses the perception of a mother with positive or negative characteristics. For children without risk, the expressive style consists on the items that correspond to the perception of an expressive mother or father. The comprehensive style includes the items that cor- respond to a sympathetic mother or father. For children at risk, the positive style includes the items corresponding to the perception of the positive emotions of the mother or father and the negative style consists on the items related to the perception of the negative emotions of the mother or father. When analyzing the channels through which the children perceive the emotional aspects of their parent's communication, the children without risk for poverty could differentiate them, while the children at risk could not explain how they perceive the emotions of their parents in a higher proportion. This can be related to the attentional processes that intervene in emotional-eliciting encounters that are altered for different reasons in children at risk. In conclusion, the work presented shows thatthe questionnaire generates data with acceptable levels of internal consistency reliability and evidence for its construct validity, allowing to make neuropshychological inferences, which make it useful for the assessment of the way that 5-year old children perceive the emotional communication of their parents.