Vers un modèle ajusté du fonctionnement socio-émotionnel d’enfants typiques et présentant une déficience intellectuelle : traitement de l’information sociale, régulation socio-émotionnelle en interaction sociale et perception des enseignants de l’adaptation sociale

Our approach was based on the heuristic model of social skills in typical and atypical childhood, developed by Yeates et al. (2007); this model differentiates three levels of social competences: social information processing (SIP) (including notably the Theory of Mind (ToM) and the social problem-solving), social interactions with adult or pairs in different contexts, and social adjustment, perceived by others or by oneself. In addition, in order to test developmental delay hypothesis versus developmental difference hypothesis (Flanagan, Russo, Flores & Burack, 2008; Hodapp, Burack & Zigler, 1990; Zigler & Balla, 1982) about the development of socio-emotional functioning in children with intellectual disability, in comparison with to typically developing preschoolers matched on their developmental age, it needs to distinguish these three levels and particularly the types of links between their components. This present study examined between-groups similarities versus differences in relational structural patterns between their abilities of SIP (specifically in ToM-emotions, in socio-emotional problem-solving); their socio-emotional regulation during social interaction with an adult and with a pair in three contexts (neutral, competitive, cooperative); and the teachers’ perception of their social adjustment. We took also into account the possible impact of their chronological age and their developmental age on these processes and we envisaged inter-individual variability in these processes by means of the identification of subgroups of children having distinct patterns of links in their profiles. We examined 90 participants: 45 children with intellectual disability and 45 typically developing children, recruited from French-speaking Belgian special schools and ordinary schools respectively. Both groups were matched for their developmental age (ranged from 3 to 6 years) assessed by means of the Differential Scales of Intellectual Efficiency-Revised (Perron-Borelli, 1996). We organized individual assessment session (in using Theory of Mind-emotion tasks, Nader-Grosbois & Thirion-Marissiaux, 2011; Social Solving task, Barisnikov, Van der Linden & Hippolyte, 2004) and three dyadic sessions with adult and pairs (Dyadic Game of Socio-Emotional Problem-Solving, Baurain & Nader-Grosbois, 2007) in neutral, competitive and cooperative contexts. In order to evaluate the manner in which children regulate emotional expressions, responses and social behaviours in Dyadic Game, we used the Coding Grid of Socio-Emotional Regulation by sequences (Baurain & Nader-Grosbois, 2011). The teachers completed questionnaires: Social Adjustment for Children Scale (Hugues, Soares-Boucaud, Hochman & Frith, 1997); Assessment, Evaluation, and Intervention Program System (Bricker, 2002; French version, Dionne, Rivest & Tavares, 2006). Our results emphasized in the sequence of development, some similar skills between both groups (supporting the delay hypothesis of ToM, of social problem-solving, of emotional expressions, of emotional adaptation, of behaviour towards social rules in dyadic game, of social skills displayed in daily life), and deficits in some socio-emotional skills in children with intellectual disability (supporting the difference hypothesis of emotional evocation, of social behaviour in dyadic game and of socio-emotional adjustment). Nevertheless, our results confirmed more a difference of developmental structure or in links between these processes in these children. Their developmental age induced variable level of each of these processes and the intensity of links. Our study led to two adjusted models of socio-emotional development, respectively for children with intellectual disability and for typically developing children.(PSY 3) -- UCL, 201