For successful communication the interacting persons need to integrate not only verbal but also emotional information. To date there are hardly any empirical studies that address this interaction of verbal and emotional information. Therefore this project focuses on how the interplay of verbal and emotional competence is working. We pursue this question by examining the processing of emotional competences in language use and comprehension, especially when verbalizing emotional contents, as well as by comparing the specific profiles of four groups of clinical participants. Those are participants with developmental and acquired language disorders (aphasics and children with specific language impairment) and social-pragmatic disorders (adults with non aphasic central communication disorders and children on the autism spectrum (HFA)).

Since there is no adequate test battery suitable to study participants with developmental and acquired disorders, we developed a large battery of tests in order to investigate communicative, cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social-pragmatic capacities. We tested participants all over Germany. Preliminary results show that the examination of different developmental groups and disorders is a sufficient tool for investigating verbal and emotional competences.

Based on the results of our numerous data and questionnaires on verbal, cognitive and emotional competences we intend to develop a model for the interaction of verbal and emotional information within communication processes. Thereby we want to contribute to current research trying to overcome the traditional theoretical distinction between emotional and verbal processing. Those investigations should clarify how emotional and verbal aspects of communication are related in developmental and acquired (neurogenic) disorders.