Greimel Ellen, Schulte-Rüther Martin, Kamp-Becker Inge, Remschmidt Helmut, Herpertz-Dahlmann Beate, Konrad Kerstin
Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of the RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany,
J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2014 Sep;121(9):1171-81. doi: 10.1007/s00702-014-1206-2. Epub 2014 Apr 16.
Findings on face identity and facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are inconclusive. Moreover, little is known about the developmental trajectory of face processing skills in ASD. Taking a developmental perspective, the aim of this study was to extend previous findings on face processing skills in a sample of adolescents and adults with ASD. N = 38 adolescents and adults (13-49 years) with high-functioning ASD and n = 37 typically developing (TD) control subjects matched for age and IQ participated in the study. Moreover, n = 18 TD children between the ages of 8 and 12 were included to address the question whether face processing skills in ASD follow a delayed developmental pattern. Face processing skills were assessed using computerized tasks of face identity recognition (FR) and identification of facial emotions (IFE). ASD subjects showed impaired performance on several parameters of the FR and IFE task compared to TD control adolescents and adults. Whereas TD adolescents and adults outperformed TD children in both tasks, performance in ASD adolescents and adults was similar to the group of TD children. Within the groups of ASD and control adolescents and adults, no age-related changes in performance were found. Our findings corroborate and extend previous studies showing that ASD is characterised by broad impairments in the ability to process faces. These impairments seem to reflect a developmentally delayed pattern that remains stable throughout adolescence and adulthood.
关于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者的面部身份识别和面部情绪识别的研究结果尚无定论。此外，对于ASD患者面部处理技能的发展轨迹知之甚少。从发展的角度来看，本研究的目的是扩展先前关于ASD青少年和成人样本面部处理技能的研究结果。38名年龄在13至49岁之间的高功能ASD青少年和成人，以及37名年龄和智商匹配的典型发育（TD）对照受试者参与了该研究。此外，纳入了18名8至12岁的TD儿童，以探讨ASD患者的面部处理技能是否遵循延迟发展模式这一问题。使用面部身份识别（FR）和面部情绪识别（IFE）的计算机化任务来评估面部处理技能。与TD对照青少年和成人相比，ASD受试者在FR和IFE任务的几个参数上表现受损。虽然TD青少年和成人在两项任务中均优于TD儿童，但ASD青少年和成人的表现与TD儿童组相似。在ASD组和对照青少年及成人组中，未发现与年龄相关的表现变化。我们的研究结果证实并扩展了先前的研究，表明ASD的特征是面部处理能力存在广泛损伤。这些损伤似乎反映了一种在整个青春期和成年期都保持稳定的发育延迟模式。
