Around 1:1000 boys is born with the XYY-syndrome, meaning they are born with an extra Ychromosome. Developmental and behavioral outcomes of some of these boys include increased levels of...Show moreAround 1:1000 boys is born with the XYY-syndrome, meaning they are born with an extra Ychromosome. Developmental and behavioral outcomes of some of these boys include increased levels of externalizing behavioral problems and difficulties with emotion regulation, while other boys show no developmental or behavioral problems at all. This study investigates whether boys with the XYYsyndrome have an increased risk of developing externalizing behavioral problems and problems with emotion regulation, whether these outcomes are related to each other, and whether this relationship differs for XYY-boys as compared to normally developing (XY-)boys. This study is of a case control, observational design and is carried out in The Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States. It includes 24 XYY-boys and 44 XY-boys, ranging in age from 1 to 8 years old. Data is collected using questionnaires. Statistical analysis is carried out via independent samples t-tests and multiple regression analyses. The results indicate that although XYY- and XY-boys do not differ regarding their levels of externalizing behavioral problems, XYY-boys do appear to have more – albeit still nonclinical – problems with emotion regulation than XY-boys. Moreover, there exists a positive relationship between problematic emotion regulation and externalizing behavior problems, but this relationship is not different for XYY-boys as compared to XY-boys. Since emotion regulation affects many aspects of human’s daily lives, and since XYY-boys are at higher risk for developing emotion regulation problems, this research suggests to monitor XYY-boys’ emotion regulation development from an early age onwards. This should help to detect problems early and prevent or minimize further developmental risks of XYY-boys. Further research including larger samples should be carried out to more thoroughly examine the risk at emotion regulation problems, externalizing behavioral problems and the relationship between the two in boys with an extra Y-chromosome.Show less
Abstract A lack of affective empathy or limited emotion recognition in children may lead to criminal or antisocial behaviour later in life. More knowledge about these concepts is relevant for early...Show moreAbstract A lack of affective empathy or limited emotion recognition in children may lead to criminal or antisocial behaviour later in life. More knowledge about these concepts is relevant for early intervention programme-designs, which may decrease problem behaviour. In this study we aimed to assess if emotion recognition is a predictor for affective empathy and if this differs between children in a high-risk group and a control group. Participants were 8-12 year olds recruited by the Preventive Intervention Team in Amsterdam. Children with a (sub)clinical score on externalizing behavioural problems on the Teacher Report Form were assigned to the high-risk group (N = 123, Mage = 10.06 years, 79.7% male) and the control group (N = 43, Mage = 10.30 years, 46.5% male) consisted of children without a clinical score of behavioural problems. Participants completed a shorter version of the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents questionnaire to measure affective empathy, the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Task-Prosody to measure verbal emotion recognition and the Facial Emotion Recognition to measure non-verbal emotion recognition. The results of the analyses showed a significantly higher score in recognizing non-verbal emotions in the control group than the high-risk group, with a medium effect size. We found no association between emotion recognition and affective empathy in both groups. The results of this study do not support the implementation of early intervention programmes targeting emotion recognition. Our study was however limited by a small study population with a possible selection bias and a narrow measuring instrument for affective empathy.Show less
