NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT OF THE PROPOSED WORK

Autism is a developmental disorder involving qualitative impairments in social interaction. One source of those impairments are difficulties appropriately creating facial expressions of emotion. Difficulties with facial expressions may stem from deficits in a motivation to express positive emotions with others. The difficulties may also stem from physiological problems in physically creating expressions which are due to damage to areas of the brain that control the facial nerve which produces those expressions.

This project will utilize automated facial analysis software to compare how, when, and to what extent 20 four- to six year-old children with autistic disorder, 20 children with developmental disabilities, and 20 typically developing children produce facial expressions. Automated measurements in which the computer ‘sees’ the moving face will be mapped onto expert human coding which will indicate whether expressions were emotionally positive, negative, or neutral. Children will be observed playing social games with a tester and in a non-interactive context watching video clips and playing simple video games.

These methods will provide insight in to the nature and possible source of the facial expressivity deficits expected in children with autism. If deficits are evident in an interaction setting but not when playing with video games, this would suggest deficits are related to an emotional motivation to engage. If deficits are apparent in both settings or are evenly distributed between positive, negative, and neutral expressive periods, this would suggest deficits are due to a physiological deficit.

Because of differences in contra-lateral control in the upper and lower face, we expect children with autism to show more extensive expressivity deficits in the mouth and eye region than in the brow region. In all regions, however, we expect children with autism to show more movement on one side of the face than the other. This type of asymmetrical expressivity – as well as odd patterns such as drooping of the eyelids – would be consistent with physiological problems in creating facial movement. Discerning the probable source of difficulties in facial expressivity will provide a more complete understanding of social deficits in autism and suggest those therapeutic approaches that are most appropriate for children with autism.