Children with autism are in 'in tune' with mom's feelings like other children


New research addresses limitations of prior autism spectrum disorder (ASD) studies on facial emotion recognition by using five distinct facial emotions in unfamiliar and familiar (mom) faces to test the influence of familiarity in children with and without ASD. Findings show no differences in the two groups of children and reveal that children with ASD are perceptive to their mother’s emotions, which may indicate greater potential to learn and socialize with people they know rather than with strangers.