Measuring change in facial emotion recognition in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A systematic review

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.