Auditory, Visual, and Auditory-Visual Perception of Emotions by Adolescents With and Without Learning Disabilities, and Their Relationship to Social Skills

This study investigated the perception of emotions and the social skills of 60 eighth-grade adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) and adolescents without LD. The adolescents (n = 30 with LD; n = 30 without LD; mean age = 13.95 years) were asked to identify 6 different emotions expressed by an actor making the same verbally neutral statement: happiness, anger, surprise, sadness, disgust, and fear. The emotions were each presented in 3 modes: auditory, visual, and combined auditory-visual. Participants' social skills were evaluated by self-assessment questionnaires and teacher ratings. The results showed that the participants with LD performed significantly lower than their peers without LD in the perception of emotions via all 3 modes. In both groups, solely visual perception of emotions surpassed solely auditory, and the combined auditory-visual mode surpassed either of the 2 separate modes. Yet, the auditory-visual minus visual differential demonstrated that the adolescents without LD were able to ...