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Are there Emotion Perception Deficits in Young Autistic Children?
Author(s) -
Ozonoff Sally,
Pennington Bruce F.,
Rogers Sally J.
Publication year - 1990
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.1469-7610.1990.tb01574.x
Subject(s) - psychology , autism , emotion perception , perception , developmental psychology , mental age , developmental disorder , cognition , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , neuroscience
Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that young autistic children are selectively impaired on emotion perception tasks. Results supporting the hypothesis were found on two of the four measures when the controls used were matched on nonverbal mental age; performance on the other tasks was consistent with global deficits across affective and non‐affective domains, rather than specific deficits in emotion perception. When the autistic group was compared with controls matched on verbal mental age, no group differences were found. These results suggest that emotion perception impairment is not likely to be the primary underlying deficit in autism. Additional areas for further investigation were suggested.