Emotional understanding: a training study with Pakistani preschoolers

This study was conducted to investigate whether a translated and adapted conversational training programme enhances emotion understanding in preschool children. Given the lack of such research in Pakistan (and outside the West in general), the training study reported here was conceived to fill this gap. Thirty-nine 5- to 6-year-olds at two school sites were randomly assigned to training and control groups, after screening for emotional and behavioural problems. The participants were pre- and post-tested on Emotional Comprehension after an 8-week intervention. Children from both groups listened to the translated and adapted version of the ‘Stories of Jack and Theo’, rich in mental state language. Children from the training group participated in conversations about the mental states of the story characters and themselves using semi-structured conversational procedures, while children from the control group were engaged in board games mediated by an adult. The findings showed that children in the training group outperformed those in the control group on emotional comprehension even after statistically controlling for earlier executive function and working memory.