Facial Emotion Recognition

There are many different obstacles autism spectrum individuals have to overcome in their daily lives; social insecurities, eye contact, appropriate spatial awareness etc. But in most cases, their biggest hurdle is mostly their communication skills; it’s been shown that communication impairment is at the heart of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that children with ASD can show a wide range of communication skills as discussed by Agius and Vance (2015). According to Agius and Vance, there is up to a 30% positive diagnosis of children with ASD who will forever remain nonverbal (no consistent verbal communication). With such a high percentage of ASD children it is recommended that their communication and learning needs are to be addressed by using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), it has been shown as an effective intervention that addresses individuals with ASD and their learning and communication needs (Ogletree, Morrow-Odom, & Westling, 2015). PECS has helped children and young adults with ASD communicate with those around them; their teachers, peers, parents etc.

Autism is a developmental disorder, which is characterized by a dyad of difficulties in a) communication and social interaction and b) restricted interests and imagination (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals on the Autism Spectrum might find it challenging to understand what other people think or what the reasons for their behaviours are, as their ‘theory of mind’ may not be well developed (Schuwerk, Vuori & Sodian, 2015). It is possible that this is why they might behave in socially inappropriate ways, being unable to differentiate between different contexts, while they might also find it difficult to make friends. Moreover, it is likely that they are fond of routines, repetition and structure (Carnahan, Musti-Rao, & Bailey, 2009), as they might be nervous with unknown, new situations. In addition, some of them might not do eye contact with other people, whereas some others might not endure to be touched and might have a difficulty developing speech (Jordan, 2005). Individuals on the Autism Spectrum might sometimes be prohibited to initiate conversations and might struggle with finding different ways to play and behave, due to the possible deficit of imagination, which in some cases might result in them having a narrow sphere of interests. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this group of people is rather heterogeneous, as characteristics of autism may differ from one individual to another (Gwynette, 2013). Another point is that people with Autism

Communication involves the exchange of messages and is a process which all individuals participate in. Whether it is through spoken word, written word, non-verbal means or even silence, messages are constantly being exchanged between individuals or groups of people (Bach & Grant 2009). All behaviour has a message and communication is a process which individuals cannot avoid being involved with (Ellis et al 1995).

Society: - Human beings who live at certain locations and corporate with other human beings sharing the same elements in the same culture.

Communication means people are able to send signals to each other. It is there so

Perception refers to the process of taking in, organizing, and interpreting sensory data. Perception is multimodal, with multiple sensory inputs contributing to motor responses (Bertenthal 1996). In this paper, I will discuss the many differences between people with autism and the people without and how each person reacts to the same stimuli differently. I will focus on a teenage boy named Brandon, who has Autism, the parents have known that he had ASD since he was 16 months of age where they entered him into early intervention. Each person focuses differently on the perception of each thing in the world, but when you add a person with autism into the mix everything changes completely. When it comes to perception I believe that top-down processing is going to be the focus of this paper since, it has a lot to do with perception, that perception may start with the brain this includes a person’s knowledge, experience, and expectation.

In order for an individual to be diagnosed with Autism, the individual must have qualifications stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (Kim, Fombonne, Koh, Kim, Cheon, & Leventhal, 2014). These qualifications that are included in the DSM-IV are symptoms of qualitative impairment in social interaction and communication, restricted repetitive and stereotypical patterns of behaviors, interests, activities, and delays in functioning (Kim, Y. S., Fombonne, tell. 2014). Researchers have found that structural differences, such as size and composition, can have a significant impact on how the autistic brain processes information. Therefore, there is a variation between what researchers describe as a "normal person" and one who is diagnosed with Autism. Structural differences cause children who have autism, would have impaired social interaction and difficulty with communication, both verbal and nonverbal. During the early stages of Autism,

The first aspect of an autistic child relates to the impairment of reciprocal communication. As a result of this, children with autism cannot explain their feelings and desires with human language. Instead, they use relentless swimming, tantrums, and silence as their way of communicating with others. Because of the absence of language, and the intensity of their emotions. Parents need to assume that every behavior problem, anxiety or excitement translates into a physical language behavior. The deficiency of language produces frustration in the children 's mind creating their body 's arousal to increase and hit what parents call the “red zone.” This red zone represents the deregulations and distress that,

display early social impairments, such as: lack of eye contact, responses to displayed emotions, and face recognition (Dawson, 2005). Research is essential in determining the neural systems involved with facial processing, since it is believed that these impairments involved with facial processing may influence dysfunction in the brain systems involved with impaired social cognition in individuals with autism, (Dawson, 2005).

Autism can be defined as “a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication” (Wumedicalcenter.com, 2017). An alternative explanation for this is that an autistic child has trouble communicating and understanding other people’s emotions and expressions. Since a significant amount of a child’s brain is developed within in the first few years of life, this causes problems later due to lack of understanding of what observed. They can have trouble expressing their feelings “with words or through gestures, facial expressions, and touch” (WebMD, 2017).

Communication allows humans

Deficit in social development is another diagnostic characteristic of ASD (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). They exhibit impairments in relationships to peers, the use of nonverbal communicative behaviors within their social exchanges, the use of imitation, and symbolic or dramatic play. As described by DeMyer et al. (1972) and Stone et al. (1997), children with autism use fewer nonverbal gestures and a more limited range of facial expressions in their communications than children with other types of developmental disabilities of the same developmental and chronological age. Children with autism appear to pay less attention to other people’s emotional displays than do comparison groups and to demonstrate fewer acts of empathy or shared

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a single umbrella disorder, where individuals’ symptoms fall on a continuum in different ways; some display mild symptoms (high-functioning autism) while others exhibit much more severe symptoms (low-functioning autism). In addition, individuals with ASD tend to have difficulties communicating and relating to typically developing (TD) individuals. According to Wing, Gould & Gillberg (2011) the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) identifies problems underlying autism, such as: “impaired social interactions and communication...and restricted behaviour (p. 768)”. There are several organisations relating to ASD, which are dedicated to funding research into the causes, preventions, treatments as well as many other aspects of ASD. ‘Autism Speaks’ is just one of these organisations that have grown tremendously since the group was founded in 2005. This movement presents the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for symptoms relating to emotions, these are known as: “deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication...to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication” (DSM-5 diagnostic criteria, 2015) in addition to other criteria. Decades of research on recognising and understanding emotions in autistic

Sigman et al’s 1992 study described the emotional awareness, or lack thereof, in children with autism. This study placed two control groups, normal children and mentally retarded children, to be compared with children affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder. This ensured the results from the autistic group were dependant on the autistic traits alone. The study consisted of three conditions; adults showing fear, adults showing discomfort due to pain and adults showing distress. Sigman et. al found children affected by autism remained ignorant of the negative affects displayed by the adults in each condition, contrasting the control group’s reaction to cease playing with their toys. From this Sigman et. al., concluded that autistic children may lack the appropriate cognitive underpinnings to comprehend emotions displayed by others. As a result Sigman et. al., deduced that due to this inability autistic children choose to ignore facial cues as they do not form the motivation to take notice of them.

Insight into the causes of this alternative mechanism can help reverse its effects to an extent, or possibly diagnose autism earlier. Moreover, face processing deficits might underpin the social and affective difficulties associated with autism, in which case improving face processing abilities could ameliorate these difficulties. Understanding of the deficits’ causes is only possible in the context of typical face