Friendship quality, emotion understanding, and emotion regulation of children with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder or specific learning disorder

ABSTRACT

Understanding and regulating emotions influence children’s friendships. Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) have difficulties in understanding emotions and in controlling themselves. Τhe present study examines how children’s friendships and their quality may be affected by emotion understanding and regulation skills. Participants were 64 children with ADHD, 64 children with SLD, and 64 typically developing (TD) children (M_age = 9.77 years, SD = 1.22) who answered questionnaires about their friendships, and their emotion understanding and regulation. Results showed that ADHD children had less friends, lower friendship qualities, worse understanding of emotions and control of their impulsivity, and used less cognitive reappraisals to regulate emotions, followed by SLD children and finally by TD children. Children with SLD reported using more expressive suppressions for regulating emotions. For all children, emotion understanding and regulation predicted higher friendship quality. The results support the significance of understanding and regulating emotions upon the quality of children’s best friendships.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion understanding
• emotion regulation
• friendship quality
• ADHD
• SLD

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sofia Kouvava

Sofia Kouvava is a Special Needs teacher and a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Economics and Sustainable Development of Harokopio University of Athens, Greece.

Katerina Antonopoulou

Katerina Antonopoulou is an Assistant Professor in Communication and Learning at the Department of Economics and Sustainable Development of Harokopio University of Athens, Greece.

Constantinos M. Kokkinos

Constantinos M. Kokkinos is a Professor in Educational Psychology at the Department of Primary Education of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.

Asimina M. Ralli

Asimina M. Ralli is an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology at the Psychology Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

Katerina Maridaki-Kassotaki

Katerina Maridaki-Kassotaki was a Professor in Educational Psychology at the Department of Economics and Sustainable Development of Harokopio University of Athens, Greece. She passed away suddenly. We dedicate this work to her memory.