Contributing to children’s early comprehension of emotions: a picture book approach

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that children’s emotion comprehension begins to develop in the early stages of childhood and has been linked to prosocial behaviours, displays of empathy and better interpersonal relationships, to name a few. However, children’s level of emotion comprehension does not develop at the same rhythm due to both environmental and biological factors. That said, there are few interventions that can help children in their development of emotion understanding, but these interventions are not readily accessible (e.g., cost, availability, duration). The current study examined the use of shared book reading and the effectiveness of picture books created on current theories and models of children’s emotion comprehension. Eighteen preschoolers were divided into an experimental and a control group. Over the course of multiple exposures to the experimental treatment, results revealed a significant gain for the experimental group compared to the control group. These results are promising by showing that a simple shared book reading approach can contribute to the development of emotional comprehension without requiring special training or expertise.