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Updated: Jan 21, 2026

Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
The Interplay of Communication Skills, Emotional and Behavioural Problems and Parental Psychological Distress
Erica Salomone1, Michele Settanni2, Federica Ferrara2
1Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy. erica.salomone@unimib.it.
Abstract:
We investigated the mechanism of impact of poor communication skills and emotional and behavioural problems in children with ASD (22-61 months) on parental psychological distress. Participants were dyads enrolled in two pilot intervention studies; the dataset includes cross-sectional data at baseline (N = 82). We postulated an indirect effect of child expressive and receptive communication on parent psychological distress, through child emotional and behavioural problems. The effect of receptive skills on parent psychological distress was fully mediated by child emotional problems: lower receptive skills were associated with higher levels of emotional symptoms, which in turn predicted higher parent psychological distress. Expressive skills did not show either direct or indirect effects. Findings are discussed in light of children's marked 'receptive disadvantage' communication profile.
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