Children with autism find understanding facial expressions difficult but make similar mistakes as peers - new study finds
Examples of morph sequence stimuli from low intensity (left) to high intensity (right). From top to bottom; male adult angry sequence, female adult surprise sequence, male child happy sequence, female child sad sequence
Young people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties recognising and distinguishing between different facial expressions, according to research from one of the largest studies to look at emotion recognition in children and adolescents with ASC. The University of Bristol findings are published today [31 Mar 2017] in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. A team from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology aimed to find out whether six basic facial expressions differing in intensity are challenging for young people with autism to recognise.