Facial Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism and Their Typically Developing Peers

Facial emotion recognition was investigated in children with autism and their typically developing peers. Participants consisted of 8 children who were previously diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA) . HFA is defined by a significant impairment in all three areas of the DSM-IV diagnostic triad of social, behavioral, and communicative, deficits (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) without co-occurring mental retardation. Eight control participants were matched on chronological and a standard score equivalent of Verbal Mental Age . No significant differences were found between groups in terms of chronological age and IQ. Participants were tested in the multi media room, where a video tape was attached to the television set . Results indicated that typically-developing children were able to correctly identify “sad”, “anger”, and “fear” stimuli earlier than children with autism. For “happy” stimuli, participants with autism were able to identify each expression as accurately as the control children for all emotions except for “fear.