Preschool Children's Seriation of Pain Faces and Happy Faces in the Affective Facial Scale

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Abstract
This study was designed to assess the extent to which use by preschoolers of the 1985 Affective Facial Scale by McGrath, et al. is associated with seriation ability and also to examine the number of different distressed and happy facial expressions which can be discriminated and ordered by this age group. 20 boys and 20 girls (mean age 4½ yr.) were recruited from daycare centers. Participants were taught and tested on seriation using a task which required them to rank-order nine circles ranging from white to black through grey. Then they rank-ordered the nine faces of the Affective Facial Scale. While 39 out of 40 children successfully sorted happy from distressed faces, the present sample was less accurate in distinguishing levels of affect than the older children in the normative sample tested by McGrath, et al. The present participants discriminated only five different levels of facial expression among the nine pictures. Accuracy in rank-ordering the faces was not associated with gender or with performance on the seriation task. Implications for clinical measurement of pain in preschool children are discussed.