Both women and men with autism show a weak ability to read the facial expressions of others, according to a large study published in the journal PLoS ONE.
Given the huge role this ability plays in social development, the researchers urge greater attention to teaching such “mind reading” skills to young children on the autism spectrum.
The study, led by Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University, looked at the scores of nearly 400 men and women with autism who took his team’s “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test. (Take the test online here.) Typical adults show a well-established sex difference on the test: Women, on average, score higher than men.
By contrast, the average score of women with autism in the study – like that of the men in the study – fell on the extreme low end of what’s typical for non-autistic men.
This provides further support for Dr. Baron-Cohen’s “extreme male brain” theory of autism. The theory proposes that people with autism show an extreme of the typical male tendency to focus more on rules and patterns than social cues.
The test involves viewing photographs of the eye region of a face and picking which of four words describe what the person in the photo is thinking or feeling. (See example above.)
"Imagine looking at people's eyes and not being able to 'read' them effortlessly and intuitively for what the other person may be thinking or feeling,” says co-author Carrie Allison. “This research has the potential to explain why children with autism, from the earliest point in development, avoid looking at people's eyes, and become confused in rapidly changing social situations, where people are exchanging glances without words all the time…. Teaching children with autism how to read emotional expressions non-verbally should become an important clinical focus for future research and practice." (See “What can help improve social interaction and development,” in the Autism Speaks School Community Tool Kit.)
For more on Dr. Baron-Cohen’s research, including his “extreme-male brain” theory of autism, see Autism Speaks’ Q&A with autism pioneer Simon Baron-Cohen.
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