Running head Recognition of Emotion in Children with …：书眉情感识别儿童…[精品].doc

Running head: Recognition of Emotion in Children with Autism Remediation of Deficits in Recognition of Facial Emotions in Autistic Children Paige Weinger Cornell University Abstract This study evaluated the efficacy of the Mind Reading interactive computer software to remediate emotion recognition deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Six unmedicated children with ASD and 11 unmedicated non-clinical control subjects participated in the study. The clinical sample used the Mind Reading software for five 30-45 minute sessions. The control subjects did not receive training, and were evaluated only on pre- and post-test performance to assess practice effects. Results showed that participants with ASD scored significantly higher on the post-test than on the pre-test. As level of emotion difficulty increased, mean scores on the pretest decreased, indicating that difficulty level had a valid effect. Findings also revealed that neither age nor diagnosis was correlated with performance or with one another. In addition, a trend indicated that greater initial performance leads to greater gains through training. The Mind Reading computer software appears to significantly improve the emotion recognition abilities in children with ASD. Autistic Disorder, along with Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), make up the three Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Individuals with autism have a range of cognitive and affective abilities, resulting in differences in the capacity to form social relationships and to recognize emotions in both themselves and others. Despite the adequate cognitive abilities of many individuals with ASD, severe deficits in communication and repetitive and restrictive interests and behaviors become problematic. Indeed, impairments in reciprocal social interaction and deficits in communication are key symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Although in