The Interpretation of Emotion from Facial Expression for Children with Visual Processing Problems

Abstract

A significant proportion of people with learning difficulties have social problems, which are often considered to be the product of school failure. However, a number of studies have suggested that these social skill problems may relate to the inability to decode subtle visual cues of body language and facial expression. The majority of studies of facial expression, however, have viewed learning disability as a unitary condition, without taking account of specific sub‐types which may have more difficulty in processing visual cues, especially for facial emotion. This study investigated children aged 8 to 12 years who were divided into three learning disability sub‐groups: 1) a visual‐perceptual sub‐type called Irlen Syndrome (n=41); 2) a group with learning disabilities, but no indications of Irlen Syndrome (n=30); and 3) a normally achieving control group (n=31). The Irlen Syndrome sub‐group had significantly lower scores for interpreting emotion from facial expression than the two other groups. The learning disabled non‐lrlen sub‐group also had significantly lower scores than the control group, but with much smaller levels of significance than those between the Irlen and control groups.

Coloured Filters Enhance the Visual Perception of Social Cues in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Importantly, this was found not to relate to any level of learning disability [23]. In both studies, children who suffered from visual stress showed better facial recognition when using a coloured overlay.…”

“…Whiting and Robinson [ 22 ] were the first to show in groups of children suffering from visual stress significant impairment in the ability to correctly interpret facial emotion. Importantly, this was found not to relate to any level of learning disability [ 23 ]. In both studies, children who suffered from visual stress showed better facial recognition when using a coloured overlay.…”

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“…Irlen syndrome is claimed to present a deficit in the magnocellullar visual neurological pathway (central nervous system) that would cause visual processing problems. Robinson and Whiting (2003) carried out a study contrasting a group of children with Irlen syndrome with a group of children with no learning disability. The participants performed a facial affect recognition task built with facial affect pictures from the Ekman and Friesen (1976) database.…”