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Measuring change in facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Measuring change in facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review

Andrea Wieckowski, Flynn Taylor, Richey Anthony, Gracanin Denis and Susan White
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, v 24(7), pp 1607-1628
01 Oct 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320925334
PMID: 32551983
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11078255View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Acknowledgment Autism Autistic adults Autistic children Databases Emotion recognition Emotions Intervention Measurement Social functioning Social interaction Systematic review Teams
Children and adults with autism spectrum disorder are less accurate in facial emotion recognition, which is thought to contribute to impairment in social functioning. Although many interventions have been developed to improve facial emotion recognition, there is no consensus on how to best measure facial emotion recognition in people with autism spectrum disorder. This lack of agreement has led to wide variability in how facial emotion recognition is measured and, subsequently, inconsistent findings related to impact of intervention targeting facial emotion recognition impairment. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the extant research on measurement of facial emotion recognition in the context of treatment. We conducted an electronic database search to identify relevant, peer-reviewed articles published between January 1998 and November 2019 to identify studies evaluating change in facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder. Sixty-five studies met inclusion criteria, utilizing a total of 36 different assessment measures for facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Only six of the measures were used in multiple studies conducted by different investigative teams. The outcomes of the studies are reported and summarized with the goal of informing future research. Lay Abstract Children and adults with autism spectrum disorder show difficulty recognizing facial emotions in others, which makes social interaction challenging. While there are many treatments developed to improve facial emotion recognition, there is no agreement on the best way to measure such abilities in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this review is to examine studies that were published between January 1998 and November 2019 and have measured change in facial emotion recognition to evaluate the effectiveness of different treatments. Our search yielded 65 studies, and within these studies, 36 different measures were used to evaluate facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Only six of these measures, however, were used in different studies and by different investigators. In this review, we summarize the different measures and outcomes of the studies, in order to identify promising assessment tools and inform future research.

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10 Record Views
25 citations in Web of Science
24 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Psychology, Developmental
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