Emotional responses to odors in children with high-functioning autism: autonomic arousal, facial behavior and self-report.
High-functioning autistic kids feel and show disgust or pleasure to smells like peers, but their words often miss the mark—so watch the body, not just the reply.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers showed pleasant and unpleasant smells to two groups of kids. One group had high-functioning autism. The other group was typically developing.
The team filmed faces, tracked heart rate and skin moisture, and asked each child “How do you feel?” They wanted to see if the kids’ bodies, faces, and words matched.
What they found
Both groups made the same wrinkled-nose or relaxed-face moves. Their hearts and sweat levels also moved the same way.
The difference showed up only in words. Autistic kids often said “I’m fine” while their face and body said “yuck.” Their self-report did not line up with their own expressions.
How this fits with other research
Gadow et al. (2006) saw the same body-word gap with emotional pictures seven years earlier. The new study proves the gap also hides in the smell world.
Costa et al. (2017) later found the mismatch during a frustration game. Faces looked angry while kids said nothing—another echo of the odor result.
Doi et al. (2020) looked at younger kids and measured odor awareness instead of emotion. Lower awareness linked to lower daily skills, hinting the body-word gap may start even earlier.
Why it matters
When you ask a child with autism “How does that smell feel?” the answer may be flat even if the body is shouting. Watch faces, heart rate stickers, or breathing speed. Pair clear labels—“That stinks, you look disgusted”—to bridge the word gap.
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Join Free →During food or smell activities, label the child’s visible reaction out loud before asking a question: “Your nose wrinkled—that means yuck to you.”
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although emotional functioning is impaired in children with autism, it is unclear if this impairment is due to difficulties with facial expression, autonomic responsiveness, or the verbal description of emotional states. To shed light on this issue, we examined responses to pleasant and unpleasant odors in eight children (8-14 years) with high-functioning autism and 8 age-matched typically developing controls. Despite subtle differences in the facial actions of the children with autism, children in both groups had similar facial and autonomic emotional responses to the odors. However, children with autism were less likely than controls to report an emotional reaction to the odors that matched their facial expression, suggesting difficulties in the self report of emotional states.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2013 · doi:10.1007/s10803-012-1629-2