Intelligence and controls of the emotions: a new test for the evaluation of the emotional responsivity

Introduction: To highlight defects or abnormalities in the control of the emotions is relevant for an early individuation of subjects at risk of psychopathology and for a psychotherapeutic intervention in overt disorders. Several instruments have been built for the evaluation of the control of the emotions in children and adolescents, all consisting of items in which the subject auto-evaluate his/her capability without a confrontation with a specific situation. The judgment is therefore extremely subjective, linked to the insight capability, often lacking in problematic subjects. Therefore a new instrument has been organized, the ICE (Intelligence and Control of Emotions), in which the child should choose among 4 answers in front of a more concrete, adverse or frustrating or unpleasant, situation. The main types of responses are classifiable as: aggressive, anxious-depressive and adaptive. Here we present the normative data for the ICE and the results in different pathological conditions. Materials and methods: For the normative data the ICE was administered to 502 school children and adolescents aged 8 to 18 years. The pathological sample consists of 102 children affected with externalizing and 151 with internalizing disorders, aged 8–18 years. Results: In the school population, a clear differentiation has been found between males and females in relation to the percentages of externalizing and internalizing responses. In males, a significant prevalence of externalizing responses has been found in every age band, and surprisingly even in the lowest, 8–10 y.o. Females show a prevalence of internalizing answers in each age band, with increasing values after the 10 years, when the difference compared to males becomes significant. Children and adolescents with externalizing and internalizing disorders gave a significantly lower percentage of adaptive responses. Their prevalent type of responses was concordant with their emotional disorder. Subjects with conduct disorders (CD) and some with oppositional defiant disorders (ODD) showed an aggressive type of thinking. Instead, some subjects with externalizing disorder did not show an increase of aggressive response, but of adaptive or even anxious-depressive ones, suggesting an inability of emotional control in front of real situations, despite the knowledge of the correct way to behave. Conclusions: The ICE test allows a better characterization of the emotional discontrol and of the abnormal modalities of thinking of certain subjects, especially those with ODD and CD, which can be useful for their treatment.