Enhancing emotion knowlege in pre-schoolers with disruptive behaviour: The role of mother-child emotion talk

Childhood difficulties in the ability to make sense of negative emotions such as anger and fear contribute to many enduring and highly prevalent emotional and behavioural disorders. This project focuses on emotional competencies in young children with disruptive behaviour who differ in levels of emotional reactivity. It examines links between these competencies and the quality of mothers' talk about emotions. It also evaluates if training regimes to alter the mothers' emotion talk improve children's emotion abilities and pro-social behaviour. The findings will add to knowledge about the development of emotional abilities and help maximise the efficacy of our prevention and intervention strategies for childhood behaviour problems.