SOUSA, Mariana Lopes de    CRUZ, Orlanda Rodrigues. Expressividade emocional da criança e expressividade emocional atribuída às personagens nas narrativas das crianças maltratadas e não maltratadas. []. , 35, 3, pp.309-321. ISSN 0870-8231.  https://doi.org/10.14417/ap.1065.

This study aims at analyzing emotional expressiveness in the narratives of maltreated and nonmaltreated children. A hundred children aged between 5 and 8 years old have participated in this study: 50 have been maltreated and were institutionalized, while the other 50 have not suffered maltreatment and lived with their biological families. Children were asked to complete a set of six story-stems. The intensity of the character’s emotional expressiveness, as well as the coherence between them, was analysed with Emotions Coding System in the Attachment Story Completation Task. Children’s verbal and nonverbal cognitive competence was also assessed. There was no significant effect of maltreatment on emotional expressiveness, but a statistical significant effect of the nonverbal cognitive competence on children’s negative emotional expression was observed. These results highlight the existence of similarities between the two groups of children and contribute to understand emotional development in children from risk populations.

: Emotional expressiveness; Emotional knowledge; Maltreatment.

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