Abstract
Although the interpretation of studies of face recognition in older children, adolescents, and adults with autism is complicated by the fact that participating samples and adopted methodologies vary significantly, there is nevertheless strong evidence indicating processing peculiarities even when task performance is not deficient. Much less is known about face recognition abilities in younger children with autism. This study employed a well-normed task of face recognition to measure this ability in 102 young children with autism, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS), and non-PDD disorders (mental retardation and language disorders) matched on chronological age and nonverbal mental age, and in a subsample of 51 children divided equally in the same three groups matched on chronological age and verbal mental age. There were pronounced deficits of face recognition in the autistic group relative to the other nonverbally matched and verbally matched groups. Performance on two comparison tasks did not reveal significant differences when verbal ability was adequately controlled. We concluded that young children with autism have face recognition deficits that cannot be attributed to overall cognitive abilities or task demands. In contrast to controls, there was a lower correlation between performance on face recognition and nonverbal intelligence, suggesting that in autism face recognition is less correlated with general cognitive capacity. Contrary to our expectation, children with PDDNOS did not show face recognition deficits.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Boucher, J., & Lewis, V. (1992). Unfamiliar face recognition in relatively able autistic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 843–859.
Bryant, P. E. (1991). Face to face with babies. Nature, 354, 19.
Bushnell, I. W. R., Sai, F., & Mullin, J. T. (1989). Neonatal recognition of the mother's face. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 3–15.
Celani, G., Battacchi, M. W., & Arcidiacono, L. (1999). The understanding of the emotional meaning of facial expressions in people with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29, 57–66.
Cicchetti, D. V., & Sparrow, S. S. (1981). Developing criteria for establishing inter-rater reliability of specific items in a given inventory. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 86, 127–137.
Damasio, A. R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. (1990). Face agnosia and the neural substrates of memory. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 89–109.
Davies, S., Bishop, D., Manstead, A. S. R., & Tantam, D. (1994). Face perception in children with autism and Asperger's syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35, 1033–1057.
Ellis, H. D. (1990). Developmental trends in face recognition. Psychologist, 3, 114–119.
Heywood, C. A., & Cowey, A. (1992). The role of the ‘face-cell’ area in the discrimination and recognition of faces by monkeys. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, B, 335, 31–38.
Hobson, R. P. (1991). Methodological issues for experiments on autistic individuals' perception and understanding of emotion. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32, 1135–1158.
Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J., & Lee, A. (1988). What's in a face? The case of autism. British Journal of Psychology, 79, 441–453.
Kamphaus, R. W., & Reynolds, C. R. (1987). Clinical and research applications of the K-ABC. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Kaufman, A. S., & Kaufman, N. L. (1983). K-ABC: Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Interpretative Manual. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Kaufman, A. S., Kaufman, N. L., Kamphaus, R. W., & Naglieri, J. A. (1982). Sequential and simultaneous factors at ages 3–121/2: Developmental changes in neuropsychological dimensions. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, 4, 74–81.
Klin, A., Carter, A., & Sparrow, S. S. (1997). Psychological assessment. In D. J. Cohen & F. R. Volkmar (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (2nd ed., pp. 418–427). New York: Wiley.
Klin, A., Carter, A., Volkmar, F. R., Cohen, D. J., Marans, W. D., & Sparrow, S. S. (1997). Assessment issues in children with autism. In D. J. Cohen & F. R. Volkmar (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (2nd ed., pp. 411–418). New York: Wiley.
Klin, A., Schultz, R., & Cohen, D. (1999). Theory of Mind in action: Developmental perspectives on social neuroscience. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds (2nd ed., pp. 362–393). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Langdell, T. (1978). Recognition of faces: An approach to the study of autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 19, 255–268.
McKelvie, S. J. (1976). The role of eyes and mouth in the memory of a face. American Journal of Psychology, 89, 311–323.
Ojemann, J. G., Ojemann, G. A., & Lettich, E. (1992). Neuronal activity related to faces and matching in human right nondominant temporal cortex. Brain, 115, 1–13.
Puce, A., Allison, T., Gore, J. C., & McCarthy, G. (1995). Face sensitive regions in human extrastriate cortex studied by functional MRI. Journal of Neurophysiology, 74, 1192–1199.
Schultz, R. T., Gauthier, I., Klin, A., Fulbright, R., Anderson, A., Volkmar, F., Skudlarski, P., Lacadie, C., Cohen, D. J., & Gore, J. C. (in press). Abnormal ventral temporal cortical activity among individuals with autism and Asperger Syndrome during face discrimination. Archives of General Psychiatry.
Sergent, J., & Bindra, D. (1981). Differential hemispheric processing of faces: Methodological considerations and reinterpretation. Psychological Bulletin, 89, 541–554.
Siegel, S., & Castellan, N. J., Jr. (1988). Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Sparrow, S. S., Balla, D., & Cicchetti, D. V. (1984a). Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Survey ed.). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Sparrow, S. S., Balla, D., & Cicchetti, D. V. (1984b). Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Expanded ed.). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Tantam, D., Monaghan, L., Nicholson, H., & Stirling, J. (1989). Autistic children's ability to interpret faces: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 623–630.
Valentine, T. (1988). Upside-down faces: A review of the effect of inversion upon face recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 79, 471–491.
Volkmar, F. R., & Klin, A. (1999). The pervasive developmental disorders. In H. Kaplan & B. Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (7th ed.).
Volkmar, F. R., Sparrow, S. S., Rende, R. C., & Cohen, D. J. (1989). Facial perception in autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 591–598.
Volkmar, F. R., Grossman, J., Klin, A., & Carter, A. (1997). Social development in autism. In D. J. Cohen & F. R. Volkmar (Eds), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental Disorders (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Volkmar, F. R., Klin, A., Siegel, B., Szatmari, P., Lord, C., Campbell, M., Freeman, B. J., Cicchetti, D. V., Rutter, M., Kline, W., Buitelaar, J., Hattab, Y., Fombonne, E., Fuentes, J., Werry, J., Stone, W., Kerbeshian, J., Hoshino, Y., Bregman, J., Loveland, K., Szymanski, L., & Towbin, K. (1994). Autism/pervasive developmental disorder field trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 1361–1367.
Walker, H. M., & Lev, J. (1953). Statistic inference. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
World Health Organization. (1993). International Classification of Diseases (10th ed., draft version). Geneva: Author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Klin, A., Sparrow, S.S., de Bildt, A. et al. A Normed Study of Face Recognition in Autism and Related Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 29, 499–508 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022299920240
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022299920240