Does facial expressivity count? How typically developing children respond initially to children with autism

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Research indicates atypical expressivity in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Limited research explores how expressivity influences first impressions in children with ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess adult perceptions of expressivity in children with ASD.
• To investigate friendship ratings given by typically developing children to children with ASD.
• To compare these ratings with those for typically developing children.

Main Methods:

• Adults, unaware of the diagnosis, rated the expressivity of children with ASD and typically developing children from video clips.
• Typically developing children provided friendship ratings for the same video clips.
• Ratings were compared between the two groups of children.

Main Results:

• Adult raters perceived children with ASD as significantly less expressive than typically developing children.
• Child raters awarded lower friendship ratings to children with ASD across all measures.
• These differences were observed even with brief exposure to the video clips.

Conclusions:

• First impressions of children with ASD are less positive than for typically developing children, even with limited exposure.
• Reduced expressivity may contribute to negative social perceptions and impact peer relationships for children with ASD.