Nathalie Nader-Grosbois

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Catholic University of Louvain

Objectives Two studies were conducted to better understand how children with intellectual disabilities (ID) empathize with the feelings of others during social interactions. The first study tested hypotheses of developmental delay or difference regarding empathy in 79 children with ID by comparing them with typically developing (TD) children, match...

These studies tested the psychometric properties of the French version of the Theory of Mind (ToM) Task Battery (vf) in typically developing (TD) children and intellectually disabled (ID) children. The Battery was administered to 649 TD children (2 ½ to 12 years old) in Study 1 and 155 ID (4 ½ to 14 ½ years old) in Study 2. Their mothers completed...

At preschool age, children need to develop socio‐emotional skills, including empathy, in order to adapt their response during social interactions with peers and adults in various contexts. When preschoolers face difficulties in their social interactions, it is relevant to assess their empathy in order to know whether a specific preventive intervent...

Empathy is a key skill in the daily life of preschoolers, and it is important to understand how it evolves during this crucial period of development. This paper includes two studies. The first study, which had a cross-sectional design, examined affective, cognitive, and behavioral empathy in 354 children (aged from 3 to 6 years) through a performan...

This study aimed to validate a French adaptation of the Griffith Empathy Measure (GEM-vf). Belgian mothers of 516 children from 3 to 12 years old completed the French versions of the GEM, the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue-vf), the Theory of Mind Inventory-1 (ToMI-1-vf) and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC-vf). The Theory of Mind Task Battery wa...

Empathy is a possibility skill that is critical for social progress and human interactions. It is a nuanced, multifaceted construct that simultaneously refers to a trait and a state, a response, and a process (Cuff et al. 2016). Although defining empathy represents a research topic per se, a common operationalization refers to it as the capacity to...

Mother–child emotion-related conversations, as a practice of parental socialization of emotion, can help children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) develop socio-emotional skills. This study intends to explore relationships between mother–child conversations about emotions and socio-emotional skills of children with ASD by accounting for the mode...

Preschoolers face new challenges in their social life: the development of social and emotional abilities in order to have positive relationships with peers and adults. Empathy, the ability to share and understand the emotions of others, contributes to this socio-emotional adjustment. This exploratory study examines mothers and fathers' perceptions...

Dans la littérature scientifique, il est indiqué que la fratrie contribue au développement social de leurs frères ou de leurs sœurs. Cependant, l’influence de la fratrie sur les habiletés sociales des enfants ayant un trouble du spectre de l’autisme diffère d’une étude à l’autre. Ainsi, la présente étude (n = 39) vise l’exploration de l’effet de la...

Executive functions and social cognition competences are associated with many important areas of life, such as school readiness, academic success or sociability. Numerous intervention programs aiming to improve these capacities have emerged and have been shown to be effective. As inhibition in particular, is closely related with social cognition co...

Social cognitive abilities – notably, Theory of Mind (ToM) and social information processing (SIP) – are key skills for the development of social competence and adjustment. By understanding affective and cognitive mental states and processing social information correctly, children will be able to enact prosocial behaviors, to interact with peers an...

Children with intellectual disabilities (IDs) show deficits in social information processing (SIP) that increased the risk of social maladjustment. As social inclusion is a major preoccupation for professionals and parents, it is important to know how foster SIP among these children, in order to support their understanding of social situations, the...

Affective and cognitive Theory of Mind (ToM) is known to be deficit or delayed in children with intellectual disabilities (IDs), when compared with typically developing children matched for developmental age. Yet, little is known about causal contribution of affective and cognitive ToM on emotion regulation or social adjustment in these children. S...

La naissance d’un enfant avec un TSA provoque un bouleversement majeur dans la vie des parents. Ces parents sont confrontés à de grands défis qui sont sources d’un stress important pouvant affecter négativement leur dynamique de couple. Ainsi, l’idée que les parents d’enfants autistes divorcent ou se séparent plus que les parents d’enfants au dével...

Emotional openness refers to the access of someone's own emotional experience, to certain characteristics that can describe our emotional experience (e.g., the tendency to be open, accessibility and apprehension of information that emotions provide), to a long-term and evolving openness (e.g., greater access to emotions) and ultimately social outco...

La socialisation parentale des émotions (SPÉ) se définit par l’ensemble des comportements parentaux destinés à apprendre à l’enfant à exprimer, à comprendre et à réguler ses émotions. Dans la vie quotidienne, les parents, manifestent des réactions à l’égard des émotions de leur enfant ; ils proposent des conversations autour des émotions en famille...

Raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) entails significant stress levels that impact parent's quality of life. The aim of this study is to explore parental adaptation between parents in France, French-speaking Belgium and Quebec. A total of 87 parents replied to questionnaires and self-rating scales to assess: (1) information about the...

Background Based on the model of ‘Parental Socialization of Emotions’ (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998), these studies examined the profiles of parental reactions to their children's emotions and the relation between these reactions and their ASD children's ToM abilities. They could help identify protective versus risk factors in their ToM d...

Research has tried to identify risk factors that increase the likelihood of difficulties with externalizing behavior. The relations between individual or environmental factors and externalizing behavior have been especially documented. Child-oriented and parent-oriented interventions have been designed in order to decrease externalizing behavior in...

In preschoolers, externalizing behavior problems are a primary cause of consultation. It is known that externalizing behavior (EB) could result from individual and environmental risk factors. Individual risk factors included notably social cognition (SC) and executive functions (EF). A high level of EB has usually been related to dysfunction in SC...

In two experimental and exploratory studies, we wanted to test the differentiated effects on preschoolers with externalizing behavior (EB) of two short-term social information processing (SIP) and Theory of Mind (ToM) training sessions, in comparison with typically developing (TD) preschoolers or with preschoolers with EB whom didn’t receive traini...

Developmental profiles in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children with and without severe intellectual deficiency. Implications for assessment and intervention Cognitive and socio-emotional development is disturbed in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who are a very low development level (between 4 and 24 months). The question is to res...

Introduction: Autism and related disorders are grouped into the category of « Autism Spectrum Disorder » (ASD) in the DSM-5. This appellation reflects the idea of a dimensional representation of autism that combines symptoms and characteristics that vary in severity and intensity. Despite common characteristics, there are varying degrees in intens...

Cet article présente deux études de validation de la version francophone de la Theory of Mind Task Battery (Hutchins, Prelock, & Chace, 2008) ou Batterie ToM-vf (Houssa & Nader- Grosbois, 2012), menées auprès d’enfants d’âge préscolaire. Dans l’étude 1, 209 enfants et dans l’étude 2, 82 enfants ont été évalués au moyen de la Batterie-ToM-vf et des...

L’hétérogénéité du profil de développement cognitif et socio-émotionnel des enfants avec trouble du spectre de l’autisme et retard de développement associé est déjà établie. D’autre part, l’intensité des troubles autistiques a un impact de mieux en mieux identifié sur le développement de ces enfants. Notre étude vise à établir le profil de développ...

L'auteur propose une synthèse cohérente et complète des recherches dans un domaine en ébullition : celui de la perception de soi. Celle-ci est envisagée de l'âge précoce jusqu'à la fin de l'adolescence, en lien avec le développement global de l'enfant. L'ouvrage résume dans une première partie comment se définissent les concepts à propos du soi, qu...

Cet article propose les modèles de la Théorie de l’esprit (ToM) et du Traitement de l’information sociale (TIS) comme cadres de référence pertinents pour l’intervention en faveur des compétences émotionnelles et sociales d’enfants à développement typique et atypique. Il propose un état des lieux des cibles et modalités d’entraînements de compétence...

Background: Recently, a social cognition training model has been developed and showed significant improvements on social cognition, social adjustment and externalizing behaviors in typically developing preschoolers. Objectives: Such model has been replicated in the current study in preschoolers with externalizing behaviors to test whether deficits...

In this study, parents' reactions to their children's emotions were investigated as correlates of children's abilities in Theory of Mind (ToM). 175 parents completed questionnaires about their reactions to their children's emotions. Children's ToM abilities were assessed by direct measures and a questionnaire completed by mothers. Inter-parental co...

Background: Recently, a social cognition training model has been developed and showed significant improvements on social cognition, social adjustment and externalizing behaviors in typically developing preschoolers. Objectives: Such model has been replicated in the current study in preschoolers with externalizing behaviors to test whether deficits...

Cette étude investigue la possibilité de modifier les compétences socio-émotionnelles d’enfants présentant une déficience intellectuelle (DI) grâce à un entrainement de la Théorie de l’esprit (ToM) ou du Traitement de l’information sociale (TIS). Dix-huit enfants présentant une DI sont répartis aléatoirement dans le groupe contrôle ou dans un des d...

This article presents two validation studies of the French version of Theory of Mind Task Battery (Hutchins, Prelock, & Chace, 2008) or ToM task Battery-vf (Houssa & Nader-Grosbois, 2012) led with preschoolers. In study 1, 209 children and in study 2, 82 children were assessedusing the ToM task Battery-vf and other ToM-emotions and beliefs tasks (N...

In an experimental design, we examined the effects of middle-term training in social information processing (SIP) and in Theory of Mind (ToM) on preschoolers‟ social cognition and social adjustment. 48 preschoolers took part in a pre-test and post-test session involving cognitive, socio-cognitive and social adjustment (direct and indirect) measures...

The assessment of externalizing behavior (EB) in preschoolers is crucial in developmental psychopathology. In the absence of any gold standard measure, new tools contribute to a multi-method and multi-informant approach. The aim of the current study is to present and validate a new observational paradigm, the Unfair Card Game (UCG), intentionally s...

The aim of this article is to explain a comprehensive program which assesses six functional skill areas (areas of fine and gross motor skills, adaptative, communication, cognitive and social skills) and which makes it possible to determine the objectives and intervention activities intended to improve social and emotional adjustment of children pre...

The assessment of externalizing behavior (EB) in preschoolers is crucial in developmental psychopathology. In the absence of any gold standard measure, new tools contribute to a multi-method and multi-informant approach. The aim of the current study is to present and validate a new observational paradigm, the Unfair Card Game (UCG), intentionally s...

Cet article présente deux études de validation de la version francophone de l’Emotion Regulation Checklist (Shields & Cicchetti, 1998 ; ERC-vf, Nader-Grosbois, 2013) auprès d’enfants d’âge préscolaire. Ce questionnaire est applicable aux enfants de 3 à 12 ans avec et sans trouble de développement.

Introduction and objective This article presents the translation method, in French, of the ‘Theory of Mind Inventory’ questionnaire (ToMI, Hutchins, Prelock, & Bonazinga, 2012) assessing adults’ perception about children’ abilities in Theory of Mind. Method It reports results of three validation studies of the French-version of ToMI (ToMI-vf) fill...

This study compares self-perception of competences in 28 typically developing children (TD) aged 7-9 years and 32 adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) aged 11-16 years in special school, matched for mental age (MA). The links between self-perception, self-regulation in problem-solving and metacognition are investigated. Overall self-percep...

Autism is recognized as an additional diagnosis possible in people with Down syndrome. This pathology is still rarely detected and treated in this population in France. This article is a review of the English literature and of studies led during the last fifteen years. Studies have identified the expression of autism clinical signs in children with...

The study examines how emotion regulation and emotion dysregulation in 3-12 years old children with autism spectrum disorders (n = 39) are linked with the five factors of personality and their social adjustment. Children were assessed by means of the Differential Scales of Intellectual Efficiency-Revised edition (EDEI-R). The teachers have complete...

Using an experimental approach, our study examined the differentiated effects on pre-schoolers’ social cognition of two short-term social information processing (SIP) and Theory of Mind (ToM) training sessions dealing with emotions and beliefs. The links between ToM, SIP, and social adjustment or externalizing behavior were examined. 47 pre-schoole...

Self-perception and autonomous solving of problems among adolescents with an intellectual deficiency This study compares self-perception of competences in 35 Typically Developing children (TD) 7-9 years-old and 35 adolescents with Intellectual Disability (ID) 11-16 years-old in special school, matched on their Mental Age (MA). The links between sel...

L’âge préscolaire correspond à une période critique quant à l’évolution des compétences sociales et émotionnelles. Cet ouvrage vise à fournir des repères développementaux concernant les capacités de traitement de l’information sociale, de régulation socio-émotionnelle en interaction sociale et d’adaptation sociale chez des enfants et adolescents se...

This study examined the extent to which socio-emotional regulation displayed in three dyadic interactive play contexts (neutral, competitive or cooperative) by 45 children with intellectual disability compared with 45 typically developing children (matched on developmental age, ranging from 3 to 6 years) is linked with the teachers' perceptions of...

This study compared Theory of Mind (ToM) emotion and belief abilities in 43 children with externalized behavior (EB) disorders presenting low intelligence, 40 children with intellectual disabilities (ID) and 33 typically developing (TD) preschoolers (as a control group), matched for developmental age. The links between their ToM abilities, their le...

Cet article presente une echelle d’evaluation de la perception du soi emotionnel adaptee au niveau prescolaire. L’analyse psychometrique preliminaire montre une structure en deux facteurs d’une coherence interne satisfaisante (sous-etude 1A) ainsi que la stabilite des reponses des enfants et leurs competences langagieres suffisantes pour comprendre...