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THE SALIENCE OF FACIAL EXPRESSION FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN
Author(s) -
Weeks S. Jane,
Hobson R. Peter
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1987.tb00658.x
Subject(s) - psychology , facial expression , salience (neuroscience) , autism , developmental psychology , expression (computer science) , cognitive psychology , communication , computer science , programming language
Autistic and non‐autistic retarded children who were matched for verbal ability Were shown ‘standard’ pairs of photographs of people who differed in three, two or one of the following respects: sex, age, facial expression of emotion, and the type of hat they were wearing. When given similar photographs to son, the majority of non‐autistic children sorted according lo people's facial expressions before they sorted according to type of hat, but roost autistic children gave priority to sorting by type of hat, and many neglected the facial expressions altogether. It is suggested that these results reflect autistic children's insensitivity to other people's facial expressions of emotion.