How High-Functioning Children with Autism Understand Real and Deceptive Emotion

Autism is associated with problems in understanding and expressing emotion. We compared the ability of eight high- functioning children with autism (i.e. those with IQ scores ≥ 70) and eight age- and gender-matched controls with similar oral language development, to understand the facial expression...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Autism : the international journal of research and practice 2000-12, Vol.4 (4), p.370-381
Main Authors: Dennis, Maureen, Lockyer, Linda, Lazenby, Anne L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autism
Autistic children
Biological and medical sciences
Child clinical studies
Children
Developmental disorders
Emotions
Facial expressions
High functioning
Infantile autism
Intelligence tests
Language acquisition
Medical sciences
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
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Summary:Autism is associated with problems in understanding and expressing emotion. We compared the ability of eight high- functioning children with autism (i.e. those with IQ scores ≥ 70) and eight age- and gender-matched controls with similar oral language development, to understand the facial expression of real and deceptive emotion. Children with autism had limited understanding of socially derived emotion. Although they could relate emotions to standard facial expressions, they were less able than controls to indicate the real emotions story characters feel, the deceptive emotions they express in the face, or the social reasons prompting a deceptive facial expression. For high- function children with autism, facial expressions may function as lexical codes but not as forms of social communication that modify beliefs.
ISSN:1362-3613
1461-7005
DOI:10.1177/1362361300004004003