Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including those who otherwise require less support, face severe difficulties in everyday social interactions. Research in this area has primarily focused on identifying the cognitive and neurological differences that contribute to these social impairments, but social interaction by definition involves more than one person and social difficulties may arise not just from people with ASD themselves, but also from the perceptions, judgments, and social decisions made by those around them. Here, across three studies, we find that first impressions of individuals with ASD made from thin slices of real-world social behavior by typically-developing observers are not only far less favorable across a range of trait judgments compared to controls, but also are associated with reduced intentions to pursue social interaction. These patterns are remarkably robust, occur within seconds, do not change with increased exposure, and persist across both child and adult age groups. However, these biases disappear when impressions are based on conversational content lacking audio-visual cues, suggesting that style, not substance, drives negative impressions of ASD. Collectively, these findings advocate for a broader perspective of social difficulties in ASD that considers both the individual’s impairments and the biases of potential social partners.

Purpose We investigated perception and production of lexical stress and processing of affective prosody in adolescents with high functioning autism (HFA). We hypothesized preserved processing of lexical and affective prosody, but atypical lexical prosody production. Method 16 children with HFA and 15 typically developing (TD) peers participated in three experiments: 1. Perception of affective prosody, 2. Lexical stress perception, 3. Lexical stress production. In Experiment 1, participants labeled sad, happy, and neutral spoken sentences that were low-pass filtered, to eliminate verbal content. In Experiment 2 participants disambiguated word meanings based on lexical stress (HOTdog, vs. hotDOG). In Experiment 3 participants produced these words in a sentence completion task. Productions were analyzed using acoustic measures. Results Accuracy levels showed no group differences. Participants with HFA could determine affect from filtered sentences and disambiguate words based on lexical stress. They produced appropriately differentiated lexical stress patterns but demonstrated atypically long productions indicating reduced ability in natural prosody production. Conclusions Children with HFA were as capable as their TD peers in receptive tasks of lexical stress and affective prosody. Prosody productions were atypically long, despite accurate differentiation of lexical stress patterns. Future research should use larger samples and spontaneous vs. elicited productions.

Background People with high-functioning autism (HFA) have qualitative differences in facial expression and prosody production, which are rarely systematically quantified. Purpose Perform qualitative and quantitative analyses of prosody and facial expression productions in children and adolescents with HFA. Method Participants were 22 male children and adolescents with HFA and 18 typically developing (TD) controls. We used a story retelling task to elicit emotionally laden narratives, which were analyzed using acoustic measures and perceptual codes. Naïve listeners coded all productions for emotion type, degree of expressiveness, and awkwardness. Results The group with HFA was not significantly different in accuracy or expressiveness of facial productions, but was significantly more awkward than the TD group. Participants with HFA were significantly more expressive in their vocal productions, with a trend for greater awkwardness. Severity of social communication impairment, as captured by the ADOS, was correlated with greater vocal and facial awkwardness. Conclusion Facial and vocal expressions of participants with HFA were as recognizable as those of their TD peers, but qualitatively different, particularly when coding samples with intact dynamic properties. These preliminary data show qualitative differences in nonverbal communication that may have significant negative impact on the social communication success of adolescents with HFA.