Development of emotion comprehension in children with autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome.
Autistic kids grow emotion knowledge like typical peers, but Williams syndrome kids plateau on tricky desire and moral feelings.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ayaka’s team tracked how kids learn to read feelings. They tested the children: 20 with autism, 22 with Williams syndrome, and 20 neurotypical peers. Ages ranged from 4 to 12 years.
Each child answered questions about happy, sad, angry, and scared faces. They also judged desire-based emotions like “wanting a toy” and moral emotions like “feeling guilty.” The study ran one-on-one sessions in quiet rooms.
What they found
Autistic and neurotypical kids improved at the same slow, steady rate. Both groups gained about 5 percent more correct answers each year.
Williams syndrome children started strong on simple happy/sad faces but stalled on desire and moral emotions. Their scores on those items stayed flat even at age 12. Higher autism traits within the WS group predicted lower moral-emotion scores.
How this fits with other research
Nuebling et al. (2024) meta-analysis says autistic people show more emotion dysregulation than peers. Ayaka’s data seem to disagree, because ASD kids kept pace with NT kids on emotion understanding. The gap closes when you look at comprehension versus regulation: Ayaka tested “knowing,” G tested “managing.”
Golan et al. (2008) found big deficits in complex emotion recognition for ASD using film clips. Ayaka’s ASD group looked better, likely because the new task used still photos and simpler stories. Method matters.
Ng et al. (2016) showed that anxious WS adults have blunted heart-rate response to angry faces. Ayaka extends that work by showing WS children also think differently about moral and desire emotions, linking inner biology to outward judgment.
Why it matters
You can relax if you teach emotion vocabulary to autistic learners; their growth curve is normal, just give time. For Williams syndrome, skip ahead to higher-level lessons on “why people feel guilty or disappointed” and weave in anxiety checks. Pair heart-rate self-monitoring with moral-emotion stories to bridge the gap.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although research has shed light on the development of emotion comprehension in typically developing children, little is known about emotion comprehension in children who are developing atypically. Thus, this study examined the developmental trajectory of emotion understanding in non-clinical (NC) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS) using a Test of Emotion Comprehension. In the test, we measured children's understanding of (I) recognition of emotions based on facial expressions, (II) external causes of emotions, (III) desire-based emotions, (IV) belief-based emotions, (V) the influence of a reminder on a present emotional state, (VI) regulating an experienced emotion, (VII) hiding an emotional state, (VIII) mixed emotions, and (IX) moral emotions. A Bayesian modeling approach was applied to compare the developmental trajectories of emotion understanding across the syndrome groups. The results revealed that NC children and children with WS followed significantly different developmental trajectories in specific aspects of emotion understanding, while children with ASD followed a very similar path to NC children. Children with ASD and NC children gradually developed an understanding of each component of emotion comprehension as they matured. However, the understanding of some components, such as desire-based emotions, hiding an emotional state, and moral emotions, in children with WS was affected by their Autism Spectrum Quotient scores. This is one of the first cross-syndrome studies to assess the development of emotion comprehension in children with ASD and WS, providing important insights for understanding the nature of disability and advancing the development of intervention programs.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2023 · doi:10.1002/aur.3053