effect of online unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders on emotion perception of school-aged children with cochlear implant

Background and aim: emotion perception means the ability to identify, predict and explainone’s own emotions and those of others. less attention has been paid to the psychosocialeffects of hearing loss such as emotion perception. the current study aimed to investigate theeffect of the unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders on emotionperception of children with cochlear implant (ci).methods: this is a quasi-experimental study with a pretest/post-test/follow-up design.participants were 18 children with ci aged 8–11 years and their mothers were randomlydivided into experimental and control groups. all mothers and their children in the experimentalgroup received the unified protocol (up) program online at 20 sessions twice a week. forthe evaluation of emotion perception, we used the test of emotion comprehension (tec)which had high internal consistency. for statistical analyses, descriptive statistics and repeatedmeasures anova were used.results: mean score of emotion comprehension test at the mental and reflective levels and itsoverall score were significantly different between pretest and post-test and between pretest andfollow-up phases in both group. the difference in the external level of emotion perception wasnot significant among three phases in any groups.conclusion: the up program can positively affect the emotion perception in children withci, especially in more difficult levels (mental and reflective), and its effects remain stable threemonths after the intervention.