The effects of imitation of facial emotional expression on improving recognition emotion states in children with high functioning autism disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are pervasive, developmental, neurological conditions. Deficit of emotion recognition is a fundamental impairment of social skills in autistic children. The purpose of this was to investigate the cognitive rehabilitation on imitation of emotional facial expression in children with high- functioning autism disorders. The method was quasi-experimental and used single- subject design. 3 children with high functioning autism aged between 5-7 were selected by available sample method. All children received 12 session of imitation rehabilitation. Emotion recognition was evaluated via NimStim emotion recognition and Ekman emotion recognition. Data analysis was performed by visual analysis and effect size was computed subsequently. The results showed that the subjects‟ performance improved in Ekman and NimStim of emotion recognition test after intervention. The Percentage of Non-Overlapping Data (PND) was computed and it was 100 percent. As well, the effect size of the training program was effective in emotion recognition. This study supports efficacy of training based on imitation in improving the emotional expressions distinguishing skills in children with high- functioning autism.