ORIGINAL PAPER Poor Facial Affect Recognition Among Boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

lar dystrophy (MD) have delayed language and poor social skills and some meet criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, yet they are identified by molecular, rather than behavioral, characteristics. To determine whether comprehension of facial affect is compromised in boys with MD, children were given a matching-to-sample test with four types of visual recognition (Object, Face, Affect, and Situation match-ing) developed by Lucci and Fein. Within-group analyses on 50 boys with MD found decreased Affect matching relative to the other matching conditions. Between-group comparisons on 20 sibling pairs found the boys with Duchenne performed more poorly only on the Affect-matching condition. Thus, mildly im-paired facial affect recognition may be part of the phenotype associated with Duchenne or Becker MD