Children in foster care are a remarkably heterogeneous group regarding their adaptation, and disrupted emotion understanding is one of the processes that may lead to differential outcomes in them. Previous research has found different effects for abused and for neglected children in emotion recognition. However, very few studies have analysed more complex forms of emotion understanding in maltreated children while considering different adversity dimensions. The present study analysed associations between threat and deprivation exposure and different facets of emotion understanding in a sample of maltreated children in foster care. The sample comprised 51 children from 4 to 9 years old (M = 7.07, SD = 1.63) in nonkin foster care in Spain. We used the Test of Emotional Comprehension to measure emotion understanding and maltreatment reports to measure exposure to threat and deprivation. Threat exposure predicted enhanced external emotion understanding after controlling for age, vocabulary, and deprivation, particularly understanding emotions based on desires. Deprivation predicted worse external emotion understanding. Our findings reinforce the limits of cumulative risks models for understanding foster children's developmental outcomes and the value of assessing separately adversity dimensions when possible, given the variable relations of threat and deprivation exposure with social cognitive development.

中文翻译：

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寄养中虐待儿童的威胁与剥夺与情感理解的差异联系

寄养儿童在适应方面非常不同，情感理解能力下降是可能导致他们结果差异的过程之一。先前的研究发现，情感识别中受虐待和被忽视的孩子会有不同的影响。但是，很少有研究在考虑不同逆境维度的情况下分析受虐待儿童更复杂的情感理解形式。本研究分析了寄养中虐待儿童的样本中，威胁与剥夺暴露以及情感理解的不同方面之间的关联。样本包括51位4至9岁的儿童（M = 7.07，SD= 1.63）在西班牙的非亲属寄养中。我们使用“情绪理解测验”来衡量情绪理解，并使用虐待报告来衡量遭受威胁和剥夺的程度。在控制了年龄，词汇和剥夺之后，威胁暴露可以预测外界情感理解的增强，尤其是根据欲望来理解情感。剥夺预示着对外部情感的理解会变差。考虑到威胁和剥夺风险与社会认知发展之间的可变关系，我们的发现加强了累积风险模型的局限性，从而无法理解养育儿童的发展成果以及在可能的情况下分别评估逆境维度的价值。