Facial Affect Recognition in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background: Deficits in social cognition (i.e., the ability to process social information) are core symptoms in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One aspect of social cognition involves perception and recognition of different facial expressions.  Abnormalities in facial information processing have been described in the literature for ASD. The inability to accurately identify emotion shown on faces impacts social communication because much information about the intended message is conveyed nonverbally. A weakness in this area can affect reciprocal social interactions and lead to interpersonal difficulties.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the ability of individuals with ASD to discriminate among common facial expressions using the Affect Recognition subtest of the NEPSY-II, a recent measure with limited empirical data on an ASD population, and (2) to see if identified deficits are correlated to real-life behavior reported by parents.
Methods: Study participants included 43 children ages 5-17 years who participated in the Simons Simplex Collection, a North American multiple site, university-based research study, which collects genetic and phenotypic information from families that have only one child with an ASD. The phenotypic battery includes administering a number of measures including the Autism Diagnostic Interview – Revised (ADI-R), Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), an intelligence test, and parent and teacher report versions of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). For the present study, an additional measure was collected, the Affect Recognition subtest of the NEPSY-II. This task involves the presentation of pictures of children’s faces and the examinee has to either “decide if two expressions are the same or different, determine which two faces have similar expressions, or identify two children with expressions that match a third child’s face” (Korkman et al., 2007). The emotions presented include happy, sad, neutral, angry, disgust, and fear. A total standard score was generated as well as the number of errors for each emotion.
Results: Data analysis will evaluate participants’ total standard scores on the Affect Recognition subtest to determine the presence of deficits. This will provide empirical data on how an ASD cohort performs on the Affect Recognition subtest.  The second aspect of data analysis will explore whether the score on the NEPSY-II Affect Recognition subtest correlates with parent report of facial expressions on select items of the ADI-R (e.g., social smiling, range of facial expressions used to communicate, and inappropriate facial expressions) and with the Social Communication domain of the SRS questionnaire. The NEPSY-II score will also be compared to the observed behavior on the ADOS (e.g., facial expressions directed to others and empathy/comments on others’ emotions).
Conclusions: The findings from this study will provide additional information regarding the phenotypic expression of ASD. In particular, it will add to our understanding of the social perception skill of facial affect recognition, which is important for successful interpersonal interactions. The identified deficits in facial affect recognition will be compared to real life behavior reported by parents on standardized questionnaires and behavior observed during testing.