A Comparison of Emotional Facial Display by Children with Autism and Typical Preschoolers

This study compared, within the context of a socially integrated preschool, the nonverbal emotional expressions of young children with autism to those of typical children. Measures were taken of happy, sad, angry, and neutral facial expressions, and of the environmental contexts in which these emotional displays occurred. Comparison groups were five children with autism and five typical children, matched for chronological age. The results indicated that children with autism were similar to typical children in the frequency of their emotional displays, with both groups spending the majority of time in a neutral stance. However, the two groups of youngsters displayed differing facial expressions in various situations; specifically, children with autism displayed happy, sad, and angry faces during incongruent contextual events. These findings have both diagnostic and educational implications.