R. Corona et al., Is affect aversive to young children with autism? Behavioral and cardiac responses to experimenter distress, CHILD DEV, 69(6), 1998, pp. 1494-1502
The aim of this study was to determine whether displays of negative emotion
s are more aversive to young children with autism than displays of neutral
emotions. The attention, behavioral reactions, facial affect, and cardiac r
esponses of 22 autistic and 22 mentally retarded 3-5-year-old children were
compared when an experimenter pretended to hurt herself and showed strong
distress in contrast to when the experimenter pretended to hurt herself but
showed only neutral affect. The children in both diagnostic groups looked
more at the experimenter and appeared more interested and concerned when sh
e displayed strong distress than when she showed neutral affect. The heart
rate of the mentally retarded children decreased during the distress condit
ion relative to a baseline condition, but the heart rate of the children wi
th autism did not change across conditions. In summary, the children with a
utism gave no evidence of being overly aroused by or avoiding the distresse
d experimenter.