The study looked at 106 female adolescents, ages 14-19, 50 of whom were maltreated. All of the girls completed a series of demographic and trauma interviews, self-report questionnaires, an intellectual assessment, and a facial recognition task.
The results revealed that maltreatment was significantly related to deficits in affect recognition, particularly in response to expressions of fear. As a result of these deficits, maltreated children tend to face difficulty in a multitude of social situations, from providing emotional support to a friend, to regulating and controlling their own emotions.
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–Stephanie Shimada