FACE PERCEPTION IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM AND ASPERGERS SYNDROME

Children with diagnoses of either autism or Asperger's syndrome were m atched on measures of verbal mental age with nonautistic control child ren. They were tested on their abilities to process both facial and no nfacial stimuli. There were no significant differences between the low ability autistic and control groups, but the high ability autistic an d Asperger's children performed significantly worse than controls acro ss all tests. Group averages masked substantial individual variation. The results are seen as indicating a general perceptual deficit that i s not specific to faces or emotions. This appears to be a common corre late of autism and Aspergers's syndrome, rather than a core symptom.