Children’s pain language
“Children rapidly develop an extensive vocabulary to describe pain between 12 and 30 months of age, with words for pain from injury emerging first and reflecting the development of normal speech acquisition. The differences in verbal expressions in the context of minor illnesses and injuries suggest that children make a cognitive distinction between the origins and sensory aspects of pain.
“Children’s expressive pain vocabulary appears to serve multiple purposes beyond simple description.We found that very young children have awareness of objects and actions that can alleviate pain and use language to seek parents’ attention and to engage parents in pain relief activities. In keeping with general language development, the youngest children used individual pain words or exclamations to convey more complex concepts (known as holographic or telegraphic speech) whereas older children demonstrated greater linguistic competence, including use of metaphor, simile and analogy (Karmiloff & Karmiloff-Smith 2001; Meadows 2006). Interestingly, the basic exclamatory vocalizations are retained throughout childhood and may reflect familial or cultural context that persist into adulthood (Craig et al. 2006).We found that parents’ communicative intent was primarily to gain further information from children about the source and nature of pain and to direct children’s behaviour.”
Franck L, Noble G, Liossi C. From tears to words: the development of language to express pain in young children with everyday minor illnesses and injuries. Child: care, health and development. 2010;36(4):524-33.
“Children’s use of the different pain descriptors changes as they grow older. Younger children (≤3;11), for example, mainly use interjections, such as “ouch” or “ow,” and words like “ache” to describe their pain. Literature indicates that children start to use the word “pain” for the first time at the age of 3;0 to 3;11 (Craig et al., 2006) and continue to use interjections and descriptors to describe their pain as they grow older (Craig et al., 2006; Ely, 1992; Wennström & Bergh, 2008).
When younger children do not yet have the cognitive and language skills to explain the bodily sensations that they experience during pain (Dubois et al., 2008), they try to explain pain with concrete phrases like “I lose my smile and feel bad” (Jerrett & Evans, 1986) or “I’m not feeling well” (Kortesluoma & Nikkonen, 2006). Some use comparisons such as “I had a real bad – kinda like a scar” (Ely, 1992) or “Feels like someone hit it with a sledge hammer” (Abu-Saad, 1984a). Other children explain what caused the accident that resulted in the pain experience, such as “I was playing too rough…” (Harbeck & Peterson, 1992) or “I touched the warm pot” (Johnson et al., 2016).
As children’s thinking develops on a more symbolic level, they start to describe their pain by using more graphic descriptors, such as “terrible, disgusting,” “aching and hurting” (Kortesluoma & Nikkonen, 2006), and “beating or pounding in my head” (Harbeck & Peterson, 1992). Older children tend to include intensifiers when using descriptor words: “really bad;” “pain was radiating…;” “pounding, stabbing, throbbing” (Kortesluoma & Nikkonen, 2006); “horrible; annoying; pin-like; sharp; shooting” (Abu-Saad, 1984a; Harbeck & Peterson, 1992; Savedra, Gibbons, Tesler, Ward, & Wegner, 1982; Wilkie et al., 1990); or “aching; stinging; itching” (Abu-Saad, 1984b; Johnson et al., 2016; Kortesluoma & Nikkonen, 2006; Pölkki, Pietilä, & Rissanen, 1999).
From approximately 8 years of age, children start to think in a more abstract way to describe pain: “Sometimes it is worse and sometimes more like stabbing” (Savedra et al., 1982). Building on these skills, older children (> 10;0) use comparisons (“Like there was a fire inside my head;” “Feels like someone hit it with a sledge hammer”) and define pain as a psychological state based on emotions (“Pain is really upsetting no matter where the pain is;” Kortesluoma & Nikkonen, 2006).
Johnson E, Boshoff K, Bornman J. Scoping review of children’s pain vocabulary: implications for augmentative and alternative communication. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. 2018;42(1):55-68.
Children’s pain behaviour
“A considerable diversity of actions has been identified as signifying pain in children, including behaviors that could be characterized as verbal (e.g., “asking for help,” “complaining of pain,” and “cursing”), facial activity (e.g., “wincing,” “furrowed brow,” and “widening eyes”), nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., “whimpering,” “crying,” and “moaning”), limb action (e.g., “flailing arms and legs,” “rubbing,” and “protecting/favoring/guarding part of body that hurts”), body action (e.g., “tensing up” and “restless”), physiological manifestations (e.g., “looking pale,” “irregular breathing,” and “shivering torso”), and social behaviors (e.g., “withdrawn,” “hard to console,” and “angry verbalizations”).
Factor analyses yielded three major factors: the “Automatic” factor included items related to facial expression, paralinguistics, and consolability; the “Controlled” factor included items related to intentional movements, verbalizations, and social actions; and the “Ambiguous” factor included items related to voluntary facial expressions.”
Sekhon KK, Fashler SR, Versloot J, Lee S, Craig KD. Children’s behavioral pain cues: Implicit automaticity and control dimensions in observational measures. Pain Research and Management. 2017.
Parents/caregivers
“Parents have well developed, although personal, ways of recognizing and responding to their children’s communication of pain, but also experience uncertainty in their judgments. Parents would benefit from information about the developmental aspects of pain and should be included as active partners in their children’s pain assessment and management.”
Liossi C, Noble G, Franck LS. How parents make sense of their young children’s expressions of everyday pain: a qualitative analysis. European Journal of Pain. 2012;16(8):1166-75.
“Overall, 101 pain incidents were observed, the majority of which evoked low levels of pain and distress, which resolved after 1 min. Pain incidents occurred at a rate of 1.02 incidents/child/hour, with 81% of children experiencing at least one incident, which is higher than previous research with preschoolers and daycare staff. Common parent responses included a range of verbal (reassurance) and nonverbal (staying closer, hugging/kissing child) behaviors. Boys were more likely to not exhibit any protective behaviors. Parents were more likely to pick up older toddlers”.
Noel M, Chambers CT, Parker JA, Aubrey K, Tutelman PR, Morrongiello B, Moore C, McGrath PJ, Yanchar NL, Von Baeyer CL. Boo-boos as the building blocks of pain expression: an observational examination of parental responses to everyday pain in toddlers. Canadian Journal of Pain. 2018;2(1):74-86.
“During the preschool developmental period, parents are instrumental in modelling appropriate pain responding through social learning and modulating their child’s response to pain. Although the literature on parental influences during clinical pain experiences has greatly improved our understanding of social factors in paediatric pain, several avenues of research remain largely unexplored. Specifically, the small number of studies which explored everyday pains spanned a wide time-period, with almost 2 decades between the most recent studies. In this same time period, our understanding of parental influences during clinical pain experiences has advanced significantly, but this evidence does not readily apply to everyday pain experiences. An increased focus should be placed on understanding where children learn about pain and how caregivers respond to common pain incidents in their natural environment.”
O’Sullivan G, McGuire BE, Roche M, Caes L. Where do children learn about pain? The role of caregiver responses to preschoolers’ pain experience within natural settings. Pain. 2021;162(5):1289-94.
Simon van Rysewyk 