Childhood Facial Recognition Predicts Adolescent Symptom Severity in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Better face memory in grade-school years predicts milder autism symptoms by high school.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team followed kids with autism for seven years. They first tested how well each child could recognize faces at ages 6–12.
Seven years later they gave the same kids the ADOS. They asked: does early face skill predict later autism severity?
What they found
Kids who scored higher on face recognition early on had lower ADOS scores as teens. The early skill explained about nine percent of the difference in later severity.
In plain words, stronger face memory in childhood forecast milder autism symptoms in adolescence.
How this fits with other research
Kuusikko et al. (2009) and Bal et al. (2010) saw that kids with autism already score lower on emotion tests. Perez et al. (2015) now shows the flip side: the kids who do better than their peers on faces have an easier road ahead.
van Noordt et al. (2022) pushed the timeline even earlier. Babies who later get an ASD diagnosis show weaker brain waves to faces at 6–10 months. Together the studies trace a line: early brain response → childhood accuracy → teen severity.
Bradshaw et al. (2011) used a similar face task in the same age group and found a deficit. The new study does not contradict this; it simply adds that within the ASD group, the top performers end up with milder symptoms later.
Why it matters
You can spot face-processing gaps early with cheap picture tests. Kids who struggle more may need extra social-cognitive drills now, not later. Track the score and use it as one more data point when you set social-skills goals and explain prognosis to families.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Limited accuracy and speed in facial recognition (FR) and in the identification of facial emotions (IFE) have been shown in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This study aimed at evaluating the predictive value of atypicalities in FR and IFE for future symptom severity in children with ASD. Therefore we performed a seven-year follow-up study in 87 children with ASD. FR and IFE were assessed in childhood (T1: age 6-12) using the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT). Symptom severity was assessed using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) in childhood and again seven years later during adolescence (T2: age 12-19). Multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate whether FR and IFE in childhood predicted ASD symptom severity in adolescence, while controlling for ASD symptom severity in childhood. We found that more accurate FR significantly predicted lower adolescent ASD symptom severity scores (ΔR(2) = .09), even when controlling for childhood ASD symptom severity. IFE was not a significant predictor of ASD symptom severity in adolescence. From these results it can be concluded, that in children with ASD the accuracy of FR in childhood is a relevant predictor of ASD symptom severity in adolescence. Test results on FR in children with ASD may have prognostic value regarding later symptom severity.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2015 · doi:10.1002/aur.1443