Emotion perception in Asperger's syndrome and high-functioning autism: the importance of diagnostic criteria and cue intensity.
Quiet voice emotion tasks best show the social-perception gap between high-functioning autism and Asperger profiles.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared kids with Asperger syndrome to kids with high-functioning autism.
Everyone listened to short voices that sounded happy, sad, angry, or scared.
Some voices showed strong feelings; others were quiet and hard to read.
The testers wrote down how many emotions each child got right.
What they found
Children with Asperger syndrome named emotions about as well as typical peers.
Children with high-functioning autism missed more feelings, especially the quiet voice cues.
The softer the tone, the bigger the gap between the two autism groups.
How this fits with other research
Kaland et al. (2008) later gave the same kids tricky mind-reading tasks and also saw lower scores, showing the social gap goes beyond voices.
Maddox et al. (2015) linked these emotion mistakes to real-life social skills, proving the classroom impact is real.
Whitehouse et al. (2014) found kids with HFA also struggle with quick word puzzles, so their trouble is not just feelings—it can pop up in verbal tasks too.
Hedley et al. (2011) showed many kids with AS actually remember faces fine, hinting that each visual or audio task can give a different picture.
Why it matters
If you test a child who carries an Asperger label, do not assume perfect social ears—still probe quiet tones.
For kids marked HFA, write goals that boost weak voice reading and plan extra supports in noisy classrooms.
Pick assessment tools that vary cue loudness; mild feelings reveal the clearest gaps and guide sharper interventions.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study compared emotion perception accuracy between children with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA). Thirty children were diagnosed with AS or HFA based on empirically supported diagnostic criteria and administered an emotion perception test consisting of facial expressions and tone of voice cues that varied in intensity. Participants with AS and the typically developing standardization sample of the emotion perception instrument had the same mean emotion perception accuracy, whereas participants with HFA performed significantly worse. Results also provided preliminary evidence for a difference in accuracy perceiving low-intensity tone of voice cues between participants with HFA and AS. Future research to build on these initial findings should include attention to tone of voice, underlying processing, and cue intensity.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2007 · doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0251-6