J Korean Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry.  2016 Sep;27(3):207-215. 10.5765/jkacap.2016.27.3.207.

Difference of Facial Emotion Recognition and Discrimination between Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorde

• Lee JS
• Kang NR
• Kim HJ
• Kwak YS

• KMID: 2358034
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5765/jkacap.2016.27.3.207

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to investigate the differences in the facial emotion recognition and discrimination ability between children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
METHODS
Fifty-three children aged 7 to 11 years participated in this study. Among them, 43 were diagnosed with ADHD and 10 with ASD. The parents of the participants completed the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist, ADHD Rating Scale and Conner's scale. The participants completed the Korean Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-fourth edition and Advanced Test of Attention (ATA), Penn Emotion Recognition Task and Penn Emotion Discrimination Task. The group differences in the facial emotion recognition and discrimination ability were analyzed by using analysis of covariance for the purpose of controlling the visual omission error index of ATA.
RESULTS
The children with ADHD showed better recognition of happy and sad faces and less false positive neutral responses than those with ASD. Also, the children with ADHD recognized emotions better than those with ASD on female faces and in extreme facial expressions, but not on male faces or in mild facial expressions. We found no differences in the facial emotion discrimination between the children with ADHD and ASD.
CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that children with ADHD recognize facial emotions better than children with ASD, but they still have deficits. Interventions which consider their different emotion recognition and discrimination abilities are needed.

Keyword

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Facial Emotion Recognition; Facial Emotion Discrimination

MeSH Terms

Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autistic Disorder*
Checklist
Child Behavior
Child*
Discrimination (Psychology)*
Facial Expression
Female
Humans
Intelligence
Male
Parents