The early development of emotion recognition in autistic children:Decoding basic emotions from facial expressions and from emotion-provoking situations

Autism is associated with challenges in emotion recognition. Yet, little is known about how emotion recognition develops over time in autistic children. This four-wave longitudinal study followed the development of three emotion-recognition abilities regarding four basic emotions in children with and without autism aged 2.5 to 6 years over three years. Behavioral tasks were used to examine whether children could differentiate facial expressions (emotion differentiation), identify facial expressions with verbal labels (emotion identification), and attribute emotions to emotion-provoking situations (emotion attribution). We confirmed previous findings that autistic children experienced more difficulties in emotion recognition than non-autistic children and the group differences were present already from the preschool age. However, the group differences were observed only when children processed emotional information from facial expressions. When emotional information could be deduced from situational cues, most group differences disappeared. Furthermore, this study provided novel longitudinal evidence that emotion recognition improved with age in autistic children: compared to non-autistic children, autistic children showed similar learning curves in emotion discrimination and emotion attribution, and they showed greater improvements in emotion identification. We suggest that inclusion and respect in an environment free of stereotyping are likely to foster the development of emotion recognition among autistic children.</p

School-Based Interventions for Increasing Autistic Pupils’ Social Inclusion in Mainstream Schools:A Systematic Review

School-based interventions for socially including autistic pupils in mainstream schools were systematically reviewed. Included interventions targeted at least one level of the school environment: the autistic children, the peers, the staff, and/or the physical environment, and assessed autistic pupils’ quantity and/or quality of social participation as outcome measures. Findings from 56 studies showed increased accessibility of school activities to autistic pupils, but the reciprocity and friendship between the autistic pupils and the peers were not necessarily improved. Moreover, limited interventions were available for modifying the physical environment. A more holistic strategy that moves the focus from individual children’s social skills to the larger context surrounding children, should be considered for a better inclusion of autistic children in school routine.</p

Quantity and quality of empathic responding by autistic and non-autistic adolescent girls and boys

Empathy evokes support for the person in distress, and thus strengthening social cohesion. The question is to what extent empathic reactions can be observed in autistic adolescents and autistic girls in particular, since there is evidence that they have better social skills than boys, which might hinder their recognition as autistic. We examined 193 adolescents (autistic/non-autistic boys/girls) during an in vivo task in which the experimenter hurt herself. In line with our predictions, no group or gender differences appeared related to their attention for the event; yet autistic girls and boys showed less visible emotional arousal, indicative of less affective empathy. Autistic girls and boys reacted by comforting the experimenter equally often as their non-autistic peers, but autistic boys seemed to address the problem more often than any other group; while girls (autistic and non-autistic) more often addressed the emotion of the person in need. Our findings highlight that empathic behaviour – to some extent – seems similar bet

Brief Report: Inhibitory Control of Socially Relevant Stimuli in Children with High Functioning Autism

The current study explored whether inhibitory control deficits in high functioning autism (HFA) emerged when socially relevant stimuli were used and whether arousal level affected the performance. A Go/NoGo paradigm, with socially relevant stimuli and varying presentation rates, was applied in 18 children with HFA (including children with autism or Asperger syndrome) and 22 typically developing children (aged 8–13 years). Children with HFA did not show inhibitory control deficits compared to the control group, but their performance deteriorated in the slow presentation rate condition. Findings were unrelated to children’s abilities to recognize emotions. Hence, rather than a core deficit in inhibitory control, low arousal level in response to social stimuli might influence the responses given by children with HFA

Physiological Arousal and Emotion Regulation Strategies in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Development Psychopathology in context: clinical setting

Handelen op basis van Theory of Mind-kennis bij kinderen uit het autisme-spectrum

Studied the role of theory of mind capabilities in the task performance of high-functioning male and female school-age children with autism. In the Netherlands, 10 Ss with autism aged 6 yrs 8 mo to 11 yrs 4 mo (Experimental Group 1), 12 Ss with pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified aged 7 yrs 3 mo to 12 yrs (Experimental Group 2), and 27 Ss (control group) matched for CA, sex, and intelligence were administered a verbal task and a puzzle-solving task. Sabotage of both tasks by a colleague of E created false belief for E, who was absent briefly. The results indicate that Group 2 Ss showed the expected stronger tendency to correct E's false belief in the rewarded task condition, but this effect was missing for Group 1 Ss. It is maintained that the findings underscore the role played by social and communicative factors in the application of theory of mind knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved) Record 806 of 1462 in PsycINFO 1999-2001/1

Toward feeling, understanding, and caring: The development of empathy in young autistic children

Autistic people are often portrayed as lacking empathy. Yet they are not indifferent to others’ feelings. To advance our understanding of the early development of empathy in autistic children, this longitudinal study followed the development of four empathy abilities: emotion contagion, attention to others, emotion acknowledgment, and prosocial actions, in 1- to 6-year-old autistic children (N = 61; Mage = 55.49 months), in comparison with non-autistic peers (N = 145; Mage = 52.16 months). Once a year, for 4 consecutive years, children’s empathic reactions were evaluated by experimenters who acted out emotional episodes to elicit empathy in children, and by parents who filled out empathy questionnaires. We confirmed autistic children’s difficulty attending to others, acknowledging others’ emotions, and initiating prosocial actions. However, according to parents, they did not differ from non-autistic children in emotion contagion with others’ negative emotions. Notably, autistic children showed a greater increase in prosocial actions over time than their non-autistic peers. We discussed how to interpret these findings in light of the “double empathy problem,” and stressed the importance of removing the stereotypical view of autism. Furthermore, this study was among the first to show that autistic children have the potential to learn and to improve empathy skills. Lay abstract: Empathy is a highly valued human capacity. Yet, autistic people are often portrayed as lacking in empathy. Recent research, which views empathy as a complex construct emerging from multiple interrelated emotional and cognitive processes, argues that, although many autistic people do have difficulty understanding others’ emotions, and this may hinder them from responding to others in a prosocial manner, they are not indifferent to other people’s feelings. Hoping to contribute to a better understanding of the unique challenges that autistic children face in their empathy development, we followed the development of four empathy abilities: emotion contagion, attention to others, emotion acknowledgment, and prosocial actions, in 1- to 6-year-old autistic children, in comparison with non-autistic children. Once a year, for 4 consecutive years, children’s empathy abilities were evaluated by experimenters who acted out emotional episodes to provoke empathy in children, and by parents who filled out empathy questionnaires. We found that autistic children experienced indeed more difficulty attending to others, acknowledging others’ emotions, and initiating prosocial actions toward others. However, according to parents, they did not differ from their non-autistic peers in feeling along with others’ negative emotions. This indicates that it might not be the case that autistic children did not want to act empathetically toward others. Rather, they might not know how to do so. Notably, despite these difficulties, when looking at children’s developmental trajectories, autistic children showed similar improvements over time as non-autistic children. This provides evidence that autistic children have the potential to learn and to improve their empathy skills

See the self through others' eyes: The development of moral emotions in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Despite the important social functions of moral emotions, they are understudied in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. This three-wave longitudinal study is among the first to examine the development of moral emotions and their associations with theory of mind in 3- to 7-year-old children with ASD, using observational tasks. One hundred and forty-two children (52 with ASD) were followed over a period of 2 years. We found that while the expressions of shame and guilt remained stable in non-ASD children, they decreased with age in children with ASD. No group differences were found in the levels or the developmental trajectories of pride. Besides, better false-belief understanding was uniquely related to the expressions of pride in children with ASD. Our findings highlight the importance of enhancing understanding of moral emotion development and related factors in children with ASD