Discriminative Effects of Social Skills Training on Facial Emotion Recognition among Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal: Soa--Ch'ongsonyon Chongsin Uihak = Journal Of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Published:
Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the effect of social skills training (SST) on facial emotion recognition and discrimination in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods: Twenty-three children aged 7 to 10 years participated in our SST. They included 15 children diagnosed with ADHD and 8 with ASD. The participants' parents completed the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist (K-CBCL), the ADHD Rating Scale, and Conner's Scale at baseline and post-treatment. The participants completed the Korean Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (K-WISC-IV) and the Advanced Test of Attention at baseline and the Penn Emotion Recognition and Discrimination Task at baseline and post-treatment.

Results: No significant changes in facial emotion recognition and discrimination occurred in either group before and after SST. However, when controlling for the processing speed of K-WISC and the social subscale of K-CBCL, the ADHD group showed more improvement in total (p=0.049), female (p=0.039), sad (p=0.002), mild (p=0.015), female extreme (p=0.005), male mild (p=0.038), and Caucasian (p=0.004) facial expressions than did the ASD group.

Conclusions: SST improved facial expression recognition for children with ADHD more effectively than it did for children with ASD, in whom additional training to help emotion recognition and discrimination is needed.

Authors
Ji-seon Lee, Na-ri Kang, Hui-jeong Kim, Young-sook Kwak
Relevant Conditions

Autism Spectrum Disorder