THE EFFECTS OF EMOTION RECOGNITION USING EMOTICONS IN

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT No authors had any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest associated with

BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Autism and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are terms used for a

BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Pragmatic ability depends on social knowledge and skill as well as

RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS • What is the effect of using emoticons on emotional

METHODS • The participants consisted of two children with autism. • One male, one

RESULTS • Both participants scored relatively low on each section of the study (below

RESULTS • Participant one scored: • 20 percent on recognizing human facial expressions •

RESULTS- FIGURE 1 Emotion Recognition Accuracy 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Human

DISCUSSION • The findings show that children with autism exhibited better facial recognition with

IMPLICATIONS • Speech-language pathologists can first teach these clients emotions using emoticons or cartoons.

REFERENCES Age, B. (n. d. ) What Is Autism? Retrieved from https: //www. autismspeaks.

Slides: 12

Download presentation

THE EFFECTS OF EMOTION RECOGNITION USING EMOTICONS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM Ali Fay, B. S. Ed. Valdosta State University

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT No authors had any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest associated with the content of this presentation.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Autism and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are terms used for a group of complex neurodevelopment disorders. • Autism is characterized by difficulty in social interactions, verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors. • Most children will not be diagnosed with autism until 12 -18 months of age. • Some children with autism will develop normally until the second year of life.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Pragmatic ability depends on social knowledge and skill as well as linguistic knowledge and skill. • Typically, pragmatic skills develop within first 8 years of life • Theory of mind is when a person understands or identifies the thoughts and feelings of others. • Children with autism can have problems recognizing and processing the feelings that others have. • Recent evidence suggests that emotion recognition impairments in children with autism are due to alexithymia. • Alexithymia is difficulty in experiencing, expressing, and describing emotional responses.

RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS • What is the effect of using emoticons on emotional recognition in children with autism? • It is hypothesized that children with autism will have better emotional recognition with an actual human face versus an emoticon showing emotion. • Humans should identify better with a face showing emotion because it is a familiarity.

METHODS • The participants consisted of two children with autism. • One male, one female; 4 years old • 5 different emotions were presented by pictures of human faces: happy, sad, mad, embarrassed, and confused • Same 5 emotions were represented by pictures of emoticons. • Examiner prompted child to point to each emotion. • Started with human faces, then emoticons

RESULTS • Both participants scored relatively low on each section of the study (below 60 percent in all areas). • Both participants scored higher on recognizing emoticon’s emotions than human face’s. • The female participant scored 20 percent better on the study than the male participant. • Refer to Figure 1 for average scores of emotion recognition

RESULTS • Participant one scored: • 20 percent on recognizing human facial expressions • 40 percent on recognizing emoticons. • Participant two scored: • 40 percent on recognizing human facial expressions • 60 percent on recognizing emoticons.

RESULTS- FIGURE 1 Emotion Recognition Accuracy 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Human Faces Emoticons Presentation Condition

DISCUSSION • The findings show that children with autism exhibited better facial recognition with emoticons versus actual human faces. • Both participants scored 20 percent higher • The findings of the study did not support the hypothesis that children with autism would demonstrate better emotional recognition with an actual human face versus an emoticon showing emotion.

IMPLICATIONS • Speech-language pathologists can first teach these clients emotions using emoticons or cartoons. • Then transfer that knowledge to teach facial expressions using actual human faces. • Doing this technique could possibly give the client a better understanding of emotions and/or have them learn this skill more quickly.

REFERENCES Age, B. (n. d. ) What Is Autism? Retrieved from https: //www. autismspeaks. org/what autism American Speech- Language Association. (1997). Autism. Retrieved from http: //www. asha. org/public/speech/disorders/Autism. htm Ibertsson, T. (2009). Cognition and communication in children/adolescents with cochlear implant. Ph. D Thesis, Department of Logopedics, Phonetics and Audiology, Lund University. Kumari, S. , Pyata, R. , K. , Bushari, A. , & Paithankar, P. S. (2016). Pragmatic skills in children with different types of learning disability: A comparative study. Language in India, 16(9), 224 -233. Oakley, B. M. , Brewer, R. , Bird, G. , & Catmur, C. (2016). Theory of mind is not theory of emotion: A cautionary note on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(6), 818 -823.