UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Vivian, Lauren
Dept./Program:
Communication Sciences
Year:
2013
Degree:
MS
Abstract:
This study examined visual allocation strategies and emotion identification (happy, sad, mad, scared) abilities of children with ASD and typically developing children when looking at stimuli commonly used in story-based interventions (i.e., line drawings, stick figures, BoardMaker [trademark] images and photographs). Participants were 10 typically developing children and 10 children diagnosed with ASD age 6 - 12 years. Number of fixations to eye, mouth, and other regions of face stimuli were assessed and compared across groups and emotion and stimulus type. Patterns of visual allocation indicated a greater number of fixations to the eyes over the mouth for both groups, although children with ASD tended to look less at the eye region compared to the typically developing group.
The ASD group generally underperformed on the emotion labeling task relative to the typical group. Negative emotions, especially expressions of anger, were more challenging for children with ASD to identify, and photograph and Boardmaker [trademark] faces appeared to increase this difficulty. For the ASD group, the number of fixations to 'other' areas correlated with autism severity and were inversely related to scores on the Theory of Mind Inventory. Number of fixations to the eye region correlated with performance on the perceptual reasoning index of the WASI-2 and scores on the Theory of Mind Task Battery. Results are interpreted in light of some popular theories of ASD. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and clinical implications are discussed.
The ASD group generally underperformed on the emotion labeling task relative to the typical group. Negative emotions, especially expressions of anger, were more challenging for children with ASD to identify, and photograph and Boardmaker [trademark] faces appeared to increase this difficulty. For the ASD group, the number of fixations to 'other' areas correlated with autism severity and were inversely related to scores on the Theory of Mind Inventory. Number of fixations to the eye region correlated with performance on the perceptual reasoning index of the WASI-2 and scores on the Theory of Mind Task Battery. Results are interpreted in light of some popular theories of ASD. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and clinical implications are discussed.