Recognition of affective facial expressions by children and adolescents with and without mental retardation.

Children and adolescents with mental retardation were compared with children and adolescents without mental retardation on their ability to recognize facial expressions. The groups were matched for either chronological age (CA) or mental age (MA). Children and adolescents with mental retardation recognized facial expressions less accurately than did subjects without retardation who were matched on CA. The MA-matched groups showed no differences in accuracy at the younger MA but a difference was found at the older MA. However, subjects categorized as having cultural-familial retardation did not differ from subjects without retardation matched for MA at either the younger or older MA. Results suggest that children with mental retardation are less able than children without retardation to develop emotional recognition skills by observational learning.