Competências sócio-emocionais em crianças com dificuldades de aprendizagem : Estudo de caracterização em alunos do 1º ciclo do ensino básico

As dificuldades de aprendizagem são tema de grande relevância no campo da educação, pelas repercussões que têm no desenvolvimento das crianças que as possuem, quer a nível pessoal, familiar, escolar e social. A compreensão das competências sócio-emocionais destas crianças surge como objecto de estudo desta investigação. A amostra é constituída por 74 crianças com dificuldades de aprendizagem do 1° Ciclo do Ensino Básico. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: o Inventário de Quociente Emocional Bar-On: Versão para crianças (EQ-i:YV; versão portuguesa; Candeias et al., 2008), o Teste de Resolução de Problemas lnterpessoais da Inteligência Social para Crianças (PRPI - 6/11; Candeias et al., 2008), o Teste de Competências Sociais para Crianças (PACS - Socialmente em Acção 6/11, Candeias et al., 2008), o Teste de Percepção de Emoções (Franco & Candeias, 2008) e as Matrizes Progressivas Coloridas de Raven (MPCR, Raven, 1965). Estudaram-se as relações entre a inteligência social, inteligência emocional, competência social e variáveis sócio-demográficas como a idade, o nível sócio-económico e a participação social destas crianças. Conclui-se que, quanto mais elevada é a competência emocional destes alunos, menores serão as suas dificuldades em termos de competência social. Estes achados permitem aumentar o conhecimento teórico sobre esta problemática, possibilitando a aplicação prática na intervenção psicológica e psicopedagógica. / ABSTRACT: Learning difficulties are the subject of great relevance in education, the impact they have on the development of children who have, whether for personal, familial, educational and social. Understanding of the socio-emotional skills of these children appears to be the subject of this research study. This study used a sample of 74 children with learning difficulties the first cycle of the cities of Évora and Montemor-o­ Novo. We applied: Emotional Quocient lnventory Bar-On: young version (EQ-i: YV; Candeias et al., 2008); Perception and Recognition Emotions (Franco & Candeias, 2008); Cognitive Test of Social lntelligence for Children (PRPI-6/11; Candeias et al., 2008); Social Competence Test for Children (PACS-6/11; Candeias et al., 2008) and Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM, Raven, 1965). We studied the relationship between social intelligence, emotional intelligence, social competence and socio-demographic variables such as age, socio-economic and social participation of these children. lt was concluded that, the higher the emotional competence of these students, lower their difficulties in terms of social competence. These findings increase the theoretical knowledge on this issue, enabling the practical application in psychological and pedagogic. This study leaves open some suggestions for future work.

Social competence and emotional comprehension: How are they related in children?

The developmental progression of emotional competence in childhood provides a robust evidence for its relation to social competence and important adjustment outcomes. This study aimed to analyze how this association is established in middle childhood. For this purpose, we tested 182 Portuguese children aged between 8 and 11 years, of 3rd and 4th grades, in public schools. Firstly, for assessing social competence we used an instrument directed to children using critical social situations within the relationships with peers in the school context - Socially in Action-Peers (SAp) (Rocha, Candeias & Lopes da Silva, 2012); children were assessed by three sources: themselves, their peers and their teacher. Secondly, we assessed children’s emotional understanding, individually, with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (Pons & Harris, 2002; Pons, Harris & Rosnay, 2004). Relations between social competence levels (in a composite score and using self, peers and teachers’ scores) and emotional comprehension components (comprehension of the recognition of emotions, based on facial expressions; external emotional causes; contribute of desire to emotion; emotions based on belief; memory influence under emotional state evaluation; possibility of emotional regulation; possibility of hiding an emotional state; having mixed emotions; contribution of morality to emotion experience) were investigated by means of two SSA (Similarity Structure Analysis) - a Multidimensional Scaling procedure and the external variable as points technique. In the first structural analysis (SSA) we will consider self, peers and teachers’ scores on Social Competence as content variables and TEC as external variable; in the second SSA we will consider TEC components as content variables and Social Competence in their different levels as external variable. The implications of these MDS procedures in order to better understand how social competence and emotional comprehension are related in children is discussed, as well as the repercussions of these findings for social competence and emotional understanding assessment and intervention in childhood is examined.