Browsing by Author "Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova"
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Item Attention Modification to Attenuate Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children with Autism: A Pilot Study(Springer, 2020) Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; White, Susan W.Diminished attending to faces may contribute to the impairments in emotion recognition and expression in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an attention modification intervention designed to attenuate deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER). During the 10-session experimental treatment, children (n=8) with ASD watched dynamic videos of people expressing different emotions with the facial features highlighted to guide children’s attention. Children and their parents generally rated the treatment as acceptable and helpful. Although FER improvement was not apparent on task-based measures, parents reported slight improvements and decreased socioemotional problems following treatment. Results suggest that further research on visual attention retraining for ASD, within an experimental therapeutic program, may be promising.Item Change in Gaze-Based Attention Bias in Adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder(Taylor & Francis, 2019) White, Susan W.; Capriola-Hall, Nicole N.; Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Ollendick, Thomas H.Although attention bias (AB) toward threat has been associated with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), concerns regarding the ability of current measures to detect change in AB following treatment exist. We sought to examine change in bias, as measured via eye-tracking, in adolescents with SAD receiving either attention-bias modification training (ABMT) or attention-control training (ACT). Gaze-based AB was associated (r = −0.361) with symptoms of social anxiety prior to treatment, whereas there was no association between bias as measured via dot probe and social anxiety. Moreover, gaze-based bias to same-age face stimuli showed change following treatment. Large effects are seen for condition (ABMT or ACT) and for time, independent of treatment condition, in gaze-based AB to same-age stimuli. Findings suggest that further research on gaze-based bias, to assess stability over time outside of treatment and sensitivity to change following intervention, is warranted.Item Impaired Fear Recognition and Social Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescence(Springer, 2016) Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Coffman, Marika C.; Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen; White, Susan W.; Ollendick, Thomas H.This study represents the first examination of adolescent anxiety in relation to peer emotion recognition, rather than adult emotion recognition. Additionally, we examine potential mechanisms for the development of Social Anxiety in females. Facial emotion recognition (FER) is important for accurate social cognition, which is impaired in individuals with various disorders, including anxiety disorders. Social anxiety often onsets during adolescence, is observed more commonly in females, and is often associated with FER difficulties. Given the importance of peer interaction during adolescence, and some evidence that FER may differ as a function of the stimuli (adolescent or adult faces), we sought to study FER in relation to social anxiety symptoms using stimuli portraying adolescent faces. Male and female adolescents (N=64) completed an online survey in which they rated 257 child and adolescent emotional faces and completed a self-report measure of social anxiety symptoms. We examined differences in emotion recognition (e.g., fear, anger, sadness) between individuals with high and low levels of social anxiety symptoms. Adolescents with high social anxiety symptoms were more likely to have problems correctly identifying fearful expressions (90.55% accuracy) compared to adolescents with low social anxiety symptoms (96.00% accuracy; t = 2.375, p = .021, d = 0.594), and this effect was observed exclusively in female adolescents. The observed sex difference in accurate identification of fearful faces in relation to social anxiety could suggest a potential mechanism for social anxiety development in adolescent females.Item Measuring change in facial emotion recognition in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A systematic review(Sage, 2020) Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Flynn, L. Taylor; Richey, J. Anthony; Gracanin, Denis; White, Susan W.Children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are less accurate in facial emotion recognition (FER), which is thought to contribute to impairment in social functioning. Although many interventions have been developed to improve FER, there is no consensus on how to best measure FER in people with ASD. This lack of agreement has led to wide variability in how FER is measured and, subsequently, inconsistent findings related to impact of intervention targeting FER impairment. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the extant research on measurement of FER in the context of treatment. We conducted an electronic database search to identify relevant, peer-reviewed articles published between January 1998 and November 2019 to identify studies evaluating change in FER in ASD. Sixty-five studies met inclusion criteria, utilizing a total of 36 different assessment measures for FER in individuals with ASD. Only six of the measures were used in multiple studies conducted by different investigative teams. The outcomes of the studies are reported and summarized with the goal of informing future research.Item Task Dependency when Evaluating Association between Facial Emotion Recognition and Facial Emotion Expression in Children with ASD(Springer, 2019) Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Swain, Deanna M.; Abbott, A. Lynn; White, Susan W.The impact of facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits on facial emotion expression (FEE) during interaction with a novel computerized system was investigated in children with ASD (n = 20), in comparison to typically developing (TD) peers (n = 20). Although there was not clear evidence of impaired FEE, children with ASD showed more atypical FEE. In children with ASD, better FER predicted better FEE when the participants were asked to express a labeled emotion (t(18) = − 2.75, p = .01, d = 1.24). The stronger relationship between FER and FEE in children with ASD, relative to controls, suggests that intervention targeting social communication deficits might have maximal effect when both processes are considered.Item The Influence of Social Communication Impairments on Gaze in Adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder(Springer, 2018) Capriola-Hall, Nicole N.; Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Ollendick, Thomas H.; White, Susan W.Adolescents with social anxiety disorder (SAD) often present distorted beliefs related to expected social rejection, coupled with avoidance of social stimuli including interpersonal interactions and others' gaze. Social communication (SC) deficits, often seen in SAD, may play a role in avoidance of social stimuli. The present study evaluated whether SC impairment uniquely contributes to diminished or heightened attention to social stimuli. Gaze patterns to social stimuli were examined in a sample of 41 adolescents with SAD (12-16 years of age; 68% female). Unexpectedly, no significant relationship was observed between SC impairment and fixation duration to angry or neutral faces. However, SC impairment did predict greater fixation duration to happy faces, after controlling for social anxiety severity [adjusted R2 = .201, F (2, 38) = 4.536, p = .018]. Clinical implications are discussed, focusing on the potential utility of targeting SC impairments directly in light of the role of SC difficulties in youth with SAD.Item Variability of Attention Bias in Socially Anxious Adolescents: Differences in Fixation Duration toward Adult and Adolescent Face Stimuli(Taylor & Francis, 2019) Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; Capriola-Hall, Nicole N.; Elias, Rebecca; Ollendick, Thomas H.; White, Susan W.Prior research on attention bias in anxious youth, often utilising a visual dot probe task, has yielded inconsistent findings, which may be due to how bias is assessed and/or variability in the phenomenon. The present study utilises eye gaze tracking to assess attention bias in socially anxious adolescents, and explores several methodological and within-subject factors that may contribute to variability in attention bias. Attention bias to threat was measured in forty-two treatment-seeking adolescents (age 12–16 years) diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. Bias scores toward emotional stimuli (vigilant attention) and bias scores away from emotional stimuli (avoidant attention) were explored. Bias scores changed between vigilance and avoidance within individuals and over the course of stimulus presentation. These differences were not associated with participant characteristics nor with self-reported social anxiety symptoms. However, clinician rated severity of social anxiety, explained a significant proportion of variance in the bias scores for adult, but not the adolescent, stimuli. Variability in attention bias among socially anxious adolescents is common and varies as a function of stimulus duration and type. Results may inform stimulus selection for future research.Item What About the Girls? Sex-Based Differences in Autistic Traits and Adaptive Skills(Springer, 2018) Ratto, Allison B.; Kenworthy, Lauren; Yerys, Benjamin E.; Bascom, Julia; Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova; White, Susan W.; Wallace, Gregory L.; Pugliese, Cara; Schultz, Robert T.; Ollendick, Thomas H.; Scarpa, Angela; Seese, Sydney; Register-Brown, Kelly; Martin, Alex; Anthony, Laura GutermuthThere is growing evidence of a camouflaging effect among females with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), particularly among those without intellectual disability, which may affect performance on gold-standard diagnostic measures. This study utilized an age- and IQ-matched sample of schoolaged youth (n = 228) diagnosed with ASD to assess sex differences on the ADOS and ADI-R, parent-reported autistic traits, and adaptive skills. Although females and males were rated similarly on gold-standard diagnostic measures overall, females with higher IQs were less likely to meet criteria on the ADI-R. Females were also found to be significantly more impaired on parent reported autistic traits and adaptive skills. Overall, the findings suggest that some autistic females may be missed by current diagnostic procedures.