The Affective World of Autism : A Review of Contemporary Evidence

The article reviews the contemporary studies done on the affective/emotional abilities of autistics. Two kinds of evidence are reviewed: first, studies that examined the ability of autistics to understand or read emotion in others\u27 face, and second, that examined the affect processing capability of autistics as reflected in their ocular behavior or brain activation. Though the findings are not very comprehensive, it appears that affect processing deficit is fundamental to autism. A roadmap of future research is created based on the available evidence