Emotion Understanding in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders From a Longitudinal Perspective

Background: Emotion understanding has been extensively investigated during the last thirty years. It has been often demonstrated that children with autism encounter difficulties in expressing and understanding emotions (Baron-Cohen, 1993; Celani et al., 1999; Thommen et al., 2004). However, few studies have tried to examine the development of such understanding in autistic children,particularly longitudinally. Although some educational programs have been developed to improve these abilities (Howlin et al. 1999, Hadwin et al., 1996; Golan at al. 2008; Peng et al., 1992; Bennett et al., 1994; Pons et al., 2003), their evaluation is still in debate.
Objectives: The aim of our research was to follow longitudinally the evolution of emotional comprehension in children with autism. We are looking for an instrument sensitive enough to detect an evolution over time in their comprehension. The role of verbal and nonverbal factors in this development will be explored as well as their impact on individual trajectories. 
Methods: An evaluation was carried on in two sessions separated by one year. Twenty eight children with autism (5- to 15-years old, M =10;6) participated in the study, all evaluated with the Wechsler Nonverbal Scale, the E.CO.S.SE (French equivalent of TROG) and diagnosed with the DSMIV. The assessment of emotional comprehension was based on the French version of the TEC (Test of Emotion Comprehension, Pons & Harris, 2005).

Results: The first test revealed that children with autism were able to recognize some of the basic emotions from pictures of people’s faces. The TEC is highly correlated with the language test as evaluated by the E.CO.S.SE (r=.87) and less correlated with WNV (r= .51). The second test session is ongoing and will be discussed at the congress.

Conclusions: Implications from this research are multiple. First, the data on the evolution of emotional understanding in children with autism spectrum disorder is important for research and practice. Second, we will be able to give information on the sensitivity of the TEC to assess evolution in children’s understanding of emotion. Third, our data shows a greater correlation with verbal than non verbal abilities. We will examine if these factors predict evolution of emotion comprehension.