Inference From Facial Expressions Among Adolescents and Young Adults With Down Syndrome.
Young people with Down syndrome do not use angry facial feedback to change their choices, so we need to teach that skill step by step.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked teens and young adults with Down syndrome to pick toys while an adult face watched. Sometimes the face looked angry after a choice.
The study wanted to know if the angry look would steer future picks, the way it does for most people.
What they found
The Down syndrome group kept picking the same toys even after seeing the angry face. Their learning curve looked like that of four-year-old kids without disabilities.
Only the angry expression failed to work; happy or neutral faces did not change the result.
How this fits with other research
Hippolyte et al. (2009) already showed adults with Down syndrome miss sad faces. The new study adds angry faces to the list, but it goes further: it shows the face must also be used as feedback, not just recognized.
Stancliffe et al. (2007) used EEG and found the brain response to anger clips was odd in Down syndrome. The 2018 paper shows the same anger glitch shows up in real choices, not just brain waves.
Valdovinos (2007) reviewed earlier work and warned that social cognition is not a strength in Down syndrome. The current study gives a clear, teachable example of that weakness.
Why it matters
If angry faces do not guide their choices, clients may not pick up natural social cues during games or group work. You can program extra trials that pair an angry face with an immediate, concrete consequence like losing a token. Teach them to stop, look at the face, and switch actions. Practice this in role play and then in real peer games so the skill travels.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Insert a quick rule: if the peer frowns, stop and pick a different toy—practice five trials and give a token for each correct switch.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The focus of this study was the ability of adolescents and young adults with Down syndrome to infer meaning from facial expressions in the absence of emotion labels and use this inference in order to adjust their behavior. Participants with Down syndrome ( N = 19, mean nonverbal mental age of 5.8 years) and 4- to 7-year-old typically developing children performed a novel task in which happy and angry faces were provided as feedback for a choice made by the participants. In making a subsequent choice, the participants with Down syndrome performed similarly to the 4 year olds, indicating a difficulty using angry faces as feedback. Individual differences within the group were also apparent. Implications for the development of social competence are discussed.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2018 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-123.4.344