Brief Report: Accuracy and Response Time for the Recognition of Facial Emotions in a Large Sample of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autor/inn/en	Fink, Elian; de Rosnay, Marc; Wierda, Marlies; Koot, Hans M.; Begeer, Sander
Titel	Brief Report: Accuracy and Response Time for the Recognition of Facial Emotions in a Large Sample of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Quelle	In: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44 (2014) 9, S.2363-2368 (6 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0162-3257
DOI	10.1007/s10803-014-2084-z
Schlagwörter	Children; Pervasive Developmental Disorders; Autism; Emotional Response; Verbal Ability; Comparative Analysis; Pretests Posttests; Word Recognition; Nonverbal Communication; Reaction Time; Accuracy; Antisocial Behavior; Perceptual Impairments; Early Adolescents + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Child; Kind; Kinder; Autismus; Emotionales Verhalten; Mündliche Leistung; Worterkennung; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Reaktionsvermögen; Perceptual handicaps; Wahrnehmungsstörung
Abstract	The empirical literature has presented inconsistent evidence for deficits in the recognition of basic emotion expressions in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which may be due to the focus on research with relatively small sample sizes. Additionally, it is proposed that although children with ASD may correctly identify emotion expression they rely on more deliberate, more time-consuming strategies in order to accurately recognize emotion expressions when compared to typically developing children. In the current study, we examine both emotion recognition accuracy and response time in a large sample of children, and explore the moderating influence of verbal ability on these findings. The sample consisted of 86 children with ASD (M [subscript age] = 10.65) and 114 typically developing children (M[subscript age] = 10.32) between 7 and 13 years of age. All children completed a pre-test (emotion word-word matching), and test phase consisting of basic emotion recognition, whereby they were required to match a target emotion expression to the correct emotion word; accuracy and response time were recorded. Verbal IQ was controlled for in the analyses. We found no evidence of a systematic deficit in emotion recognition accuracy or response time for children with ASD, controlling for verbal ability. However, when controlling for children's accuracy in word-word matching, children with ASD had significantly lower emotion recognition accuracy when compared to typically developing children. The findings suggest that the social impairments observed in children with ASD are not the result of marked deficits in basic emotion recognition accuracy or longer response times. However, children with ASD may be relying on other perceptual skills (such as advanced word-word matching) to complete emotion recognition tasks at a similar level as typically developing children. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10