What's in the Face? the Comprehension of Facial Expressions in Sign Language by Deaf Children with Autism

Background:

Children with autism tend to look less at others’ faces (Klin, Jones et al., 2002; Dawson et al, 2004, 2005) and show deficits on a range of face processing tasks compared to their peers (Schultz 2005).  Such impairments might have specific consequences for deaf children with autism who use sign language, as the face plays an important role in sign language, communicating both linguistic as well as affective information.  This is the first known study to date which examines the extent to which deaf children with autism comprehend the linguistic use of the face in sign language.

Objectives:

Are deaf individuals with autism impaired at comprehending a facial act that has linguistic significance in British Sign Language (BSL): the negation of a statement?

Methods: Test of negation comprehension in BSL

Sentences which use negation involve expressing that something is not present or in existence (Sutton Spence and Woll 1999, chapter 4). Negation in BSL is unique in that its linguistic meaning can be conveyed through face actions alone, or through a combination of the lexical sign for negation (hands), as well as the face. In our task deaf children with autism and typically developing deaf children (controls) watched short video clips of a signer producing signed phrases in three conditions; i) positive (27 trials), ii) negative: hand sign and facial action (16 trials), and iii) negative: facial action alone (16 trials).  After each trial the child is shown two pictures and asked to choose the picture which matches the sign.

It is hypothesised that deaf children with autism will have greater difficulty relative to controls at comprehending negation in the face only condition compared with the face and hands condition. The controls are expected to show no difference between comprehension of negation in both face and hands and facial action only conditions.

Results:

Results from typically developing deaf children indicate that there is no significant difference in accuracy between the two negation conditions (face and hands and facial action alone). Preliminary results from the deaf children with autism suggest that they do show some difficulty comprehending negation when it is on the face alone compared with when it is on the face and hands.

Conclusions:

Results suggest that deaf children with autism may have some difficulties comprehending facial expressions in sign language compared to their typically developing peers. These findings indicate that it is possible for face processing difficulties associated with autism to have subtle effects on sign language comprehension.