Welcome to the Emotional Development research lab
Focus on Emotions in Children and Adolescents
In this research lab, we concentrate on the different aspects of emotional functioning. We have a specific interest in children's and adolescents' focus on emotions, hence the name of our group: Focus on Emotions. The group forms part of the unit Developmental and Educational Psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Our research involves many aspects of children's emotion regulation, such as appraisal and emotion awareness, coping, emotion expression, and social influences on children's emotional development. We study children's emotional functioning in typically and atypically developing groups.
Since validated measures to examine the various aspects of children’s emotional functioning are scarce, many of the instruments we use are developed and/or validated within this group (see Instrument Development).

Two of our students collecting data on children with ASD, by analysing videos of test sessions
Specific projects
- Autism: Understanding and applying emotion regulation skills in children with autism
- Culture: The functionality of emotion regulation skills in different cultures
- Deafness: How functional are deaf children’s emotional skills?
- Somatic Complaints: To what extent do emotion regulation skills contribute to the experience of somatic complaints in children and adolescents?
- Theory of Mind: How can we measure children’s ToM capacities?

