Question 2

What research tells us this is a problem? What are the specific neurological differences identified that researchers link to emotion and face processing challenges?

There is much research out there reporting that children with autism have difficulty with emotional understanding along with facial processing.  There is so much research in this area because a key behavior in people with autism is difficulty with socialization and emotional understanding. (Hill et al, 2004)

In Rump et al’s (2009) research,   she discusses the “Development of emotion: recognition in individuals with autism”.  This study explored how recognition of emotion developed from age 5 to adult in people with autism compared to controls.    This study found that adults with autism were not as good at identifying emotions on people’s faces as the control group of adults.  However, the children and adolescents with autism did not show a significant difference from controls on identifying emotion.   In the control groups,  children performed worse than adolescents, and both groups worse than the adults.  However, the group of adolescent participants with autism did not show this difference with adults with autism.  This demonstrates how people with autism may stop learning about emotion and maturing in this category as they age. (Rump et al, 2004)

A brief report on cognitive processing of own emotions of people with ASD was written by Hill, Verthoz, and Frith (2004).  This was a survey taken by people with ASD, as well as a control group, answering questions on how they felt they processed emotion and if they were depressed.  Relatives of the participants with autism also took these two surveys.  The results showed that in the group with ASD only 14.8% were not impaired in emotion processing abilities, but 78.7% of relatives and 82.9% were non impaired.  It was concluded that there was a significant difference between emotional processing of adults with autism compared to relatives of adults with autism and the control group.  Adults with ASD experience a significantly higher level of depression than the controls and their relatives (Hill et al, 2004).

I found the article “Eye contact detection in humans from birth” by Farroni, Csibra, Simion, and Johnson, 2002) very interesting.  This article explored newborn’s gaze and neural processing of faces in 4 month olds.  It was noted that newborns (first five days of life) look longer at a face that is looking directly at the infant compared to a face averting his gaze away from the infant.  They also found that in “four month olds infants, the presence of direct gaze facilitated the neural processes that are associated with the earliest steps of face encoding” (Farroni et al, 2002, pp9604) This study shows at what a young age typically developing children develop eye contact and their interest in others eyes, which I think is interesting to compare this to our kids with autism.  This is brought up because of the conclusion in Krichner, et al, (2011) that “there is an association between deviant eye gaze behavior in autistic individuals and face processing deficits and social impairment” (Krichner et al, 2011, pp166)

People with autism have difficulty interpreting and expressing emotion. This study explored the intonation and emotion in ASD (Hubbard & Trauner, 2006).   The study included nine children with Asperger’s Syndrome, nine with autism, and 10 controls. This was a two experiment study. In the first experiment, the participants were asked to repeat a phrase with happy, sad and angry intonation.  In the second experiment, the children were read a story and asked to complete the story with one sentence while pretending to be a character.  In experiment one, all three groups showed a correlation between pitch range and intended emotion. In the second experiment, only four of the nine children with autism could complete the task. There was no significant difference found in experiment 2 between the two groups.   The ASD group had a larger pitch range than the other two groups. The author commented that the autistic subjects outperformed controls on subjective ratings of emotion, but scored very low on spontaneous speech, the researcher raised the question, “...whether the high scoring subjects are truly processing the stimuli in Experiment 1 as speech or rather as sounds.” (Hubbard &Trauner, 2006, pp 171)

What are the specific neurological differences identified that researchers link to emotion and face processing challenges?

The one area of the brain that seems to resurface in relations to autism and social perception is the amygdala.  Another part of the brain involved in processing social stimuli is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex which has reciprocal connections with the amgydala (Monk etal, 2009).  The ventromedial  prefrontal coretex is involved in cognitive flexibility and dealing with social situations (Monk et al, 2009) The fusiform gyrus is involved in identifying faces,  the superior temporal sulcus processes changeable features of the face, which then activates the amygdala. (Schultz, 2005,  Monk et al, 2009) The fusiform face area (FFA) has been controversially known to activate strongly to faces as well as other stimuli (Schultz, 2005 ).  The FFA is within “the lateral aspect of the middle part of the fusiform gyrus” ( Schultz, 2005, pp130)  The FFA is thought to be involved with perceptual facial recognition. However, this area has been known to  activate when someone is looking at something they have high emotional attachment to, such as, a bird watcher looking at birds (Schultz, 2005) 

“The subcortical visual system passes information from retina to the superior colliculus to the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus to the amgydala” ( Schultz, 2005, pp135) One hypotheses is that children with autism have an issue with the subcortical visual system at birth resulting in being less attentive to faces at birth  and thus affecting development of socialization as the child ages (Schultz, 2005).

Studies have shown a greater activation in the amygdala when shown faces in people with ASD than controls (Monk et al, 2009). Monk et al (2009) found that people with ASD had a greater right amygdala activation toward happy verse neutral faces and sad neutral faces than controls. There was no difference in angry to neutral neutral faces.   The ASD group had weaker connectivity between right amygdale and left middle temporal gyrus when shown happy faces.  The control group had more activation in the inferior frontal gyrus when shown sad-neutral pairs.  The ASD group had greater connectivity between right amygdale and ventro medial prefrontal cortex to happy faces (Monk et al, 2009).

Schultz(2005) discusses hypo activation in the FFA area of the brain in people with ASD.  There may be a relationship between social impairment and activation of the FFA area of the brain.  The right fusiform gyrus may be enlarged in people with ASD (Schultz, 2005). 

People with autism have shown less activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex compared to controls in response to facial displays(Monk et al, 2009).   In people with autism the “white matter tract between temporal lobe and amygdala is compromised” ( Monk et al,. 2009, pp106)

Another study explored “Resting cortical brain activity and social behavior in higher functioning children with autism.” (Sutton et al, 2004)  This study measured resting anterior cortical activity which may explain the social and emotional differences in children with autism.   They compared children with learning disabilities, typically developing children and children with autism.   The autism group had more left sided than right sided activity.   Children with HFA who showed an increase in right midfrontal asymmetry also had reports of more social impairments and social and emotional functioning difficulties.    In conclusion, there may be a correlation between social interaction and anterior cortical asymmetry  (Sutton et al, 2004).

             

As a side note, I know the question was brought up, I believe in module 2, do children with blindness have a decrease in attachment/socialization.  In the article I read by Schultz (2005), he mentioned that children with congenital blindness have social impairments. He was referring to a study by Hobson and Bishop, (2003)

References

Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U. (2004). “Brief Report: Cognitive processing of own emotions in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder and in their relatives.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34 (2) 229-235.

Hubbard, K., Trauner, D. (2007). “Intonation and Emotion in Autistic Spectrum Disorders” J Psycholinguist Res 36:159-173.

Krichner, J., Hatri A., Heekreren, H.R., Dziobeck, I. (2011) “Autistic Symptomology, Face Processing Abilities, and Eye Fixation Patterns.” J Autism Dev Disord 41: 158-167.

Farroni, T, Csibra, G., Simion, F., Johnson, M. (2002). “Eye contact detection in humans from birth.” PNAS 99(14)9602-9605.

Monk, C., Weng, S., Wiggins, J., Kurapati, N, Louro, H., Carraso, M., Maslowsky, J., Risi, S., Lord, C. (2010) “Neural circuitry of emotional face processing in autism spectrum disorders.” J Psychiatry Neurosci 35 (2) 105-114.

Rump, K., Giovannelli, J., Minshew, N., Strauss, M. (2009). “The development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism.” Child Development, 80 (5), 1434-1447.

Schultz, R. (2005). “Development deficits in social perception in autism: the role of the amygdale and fusiform face area.” Int.J. Devl Neuroscience 23 125-141.

Sutton, S., Burnette, C., Mundy, P.C., Meyer, J., Vaughan, A., Sanders, C., & Yale, M. (2005). “Resting cortical brain activity and social behavior in higher functioning children with autism.”  Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46: 2, 211-222.

Question 1

a. What are the challenges our children with ASD face with respect to emotion understanding?

There are a variety of challenges children with ASD face in understanding and projecting emotion. Overall in the readings, it is understood that people with an ASD have difficulty processing and understanding emotion. Many authors/researchers have speculated and studied why children with autism have differences in understanding/displaying emotion compared to other people.  This posting will discuss some of these thoughts.

Children with ASD may have difficulty with the cognitive processing and understanding of emotions In other words, the way the brain processes the understanding of emotion. (Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U,2004)

One theory of children with autism’s understanding of emotion is entitled “mind-blindness.” Baron Cohen developed the  mindblindness theory; he hypothesized that people with ASD have a delay in developing the understanding of what others are feeling. People with ASD have difficulty putting themselves in someone else’s place and understanding how that other person is feeling.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-blindness)

Another theory is that people with autism have difficulty controlling and understanding emotion because they have difficulties with socialization, communication, and flexibility; the combination of these deficits leads to difficulty understanding other’s emotions.

(http://www.emotionalprocessing.org.uk)

Another thought is that people with an ASD have difficulty interpreting emotion and understanding emotion including emotion noted by the intonation of speech; this will be further discussed on the next posting(Hubbard &Trauner, 2007).

    

b. Processing facial features?

People with autism are understood to have difficulty processing facial features as well as reading emotion on facial expressions.  One of the first indicators of abnormal brain development is decreased facial recognition by age one. By 12 months a typically developing child should use their mothers’ expression to guide their reactions; this is not always found in children with ASD. (Dawson, Webb, Carver, Panagiotides, McPartland , 2004)

Children with ASD may not process the face holistically and have been known to focus on the person’s mouth as opposed to eyes.  This results in difficulty with facial recognition.  If the child is cued to focus on certain parts of the face, he has a better chance of facial recognition.  Overall, Children with ASD’s brains show abnormal facial processing on fMRI and ERP which demonstrated different use of the brain to process faces as compared to typical children (Gauthier, Klaiman, Schultz, 2009.)

Different brain activity has been found in children with ASD opposed to typically developing children when looking at faces with different emotion. (Dawson et al, 2004)  This impairment in facial processing may be secondary to impairment in emotion, socialization or with joint attention. (Dawson et al, 2004)

c How are they inter-related?

It is very hard to distinguish between if children with ASD have difficulty with emotional processing, facial processing or a combination.  You must look at someone’s face, facial features, and expression to aid in understanding what emotion they are displaying or feeling.  “Given that emotion is often displayed in the face, separating a deficit in facial processing from a deficit in understanding and recognizing facial expression is difficult (343, dawson et al, 2004). However, there are also studies that oppose the idea that facial recognition and emotional recognition are separate (Dawson, 2004).

d How does it impact daily function? (ie: verbal communication, non-verbal communication, eye contact/social referencing/social skills, and overall participation in the community..) 

We use understanding of emotion and facial expression/recognition often.  In regards to verbal communication, not understanding intonation and the emotion of expression can affect how you react to a situation (http://www.emotionalprocessing.org.uk/Various%20articles/Autism.htm#Autism_and_Emotional_Processing).  For example if we see someone start to get teary when we are talking about someone who passed away, we may switch the subject.  Someone with an ASD may not recognize the sadness and switch the subject.

     Having impaired non verbal communication makes it difficult to make friends and interact in the community. For example, when a waitress asks for your order, sometimes they will just look at you and smile indicating you should order, but if you do not

understand what this means, then you will miss ordering. 

Social skills is greatly affected by difficulty understanding emotion.  The ability to make friends could be very difficult.  Many people rely on friends to cheer them up or understand what they are going through and that is difficult to do with lack of emotional understanding. You could also easily misunderstand many things that friends say.

     Working involves socialization.  Knowing when is a good time to speak with a supervisor about a day off or getting a raise or asking them a question about work, is integral in getting a good response.  For example, you are not going to ask your supervisor for a raise right after they finish yelling at you.

e. How could it impact behaviors across the lifespan and challenge things like getting and sustaining a job?

Reading people is important throughout life.  Being able to interview is vital in getting a job and having trouble responding to questions, such as, what would you do if you disliked a co-worker, may result in difficulty finding a job.  Being able to understand if a coworker is upset with you or happy for you can make for difficulty working together on projects which is very important with most jobs.

References

Dawson, G., Webb, S., Carver, L., Panagitotides, H., McPartland, J. (2004). Young children with autism show atypical brain responses to fearful versus neutral facial expressions of emotion. Developmental Science. 7:3 340-359.

Gauthier, I., Klaiman, C., Schultz, R. (2009)Face composite effects reveal abnormal face processing in Autism spectrum disorders. Vision Research. 49: 470-478.

Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U. (2004). Brief report: Cognitive processing of own emotions in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder and in their relatives. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34: 2.

Hubbard, K., Trauner, D. (2007). Intonation and Emotion in Autistic Spectrum Disorders. J Pyscholinguist Res. 36: 159-173.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-blindness

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/01/emotional-processing-in-autism-spectrum.php

http://www.emotionalprocessing.org.uk/Various%20articles/Autism.htm#Autism_and_Emotional_Processing_

MU Autism Emotion and Face Processing