자폐스펙트럼장애 아동의 장면 기반 감정상징 인식 및 표현능력

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing children to recognize and express scene-based emotion symbols. Method: 15 children with ASD and 15 typically developing children aged 3-6 participated. In the scene-based emotion recognition task, 4 scene-based symbols were presented on a screen and the children were asked to select the scene-based symbol related to the target emotional vocabulary. In the emotional expression task, 14 scene-based symbols were randomly listed and the children were asked to identify the emotions of the main character. Results: First, there were significant differences in emotional recognizing between ASD and TD children. Second, except for dislike, there were significant differences in emotional expression in the sence-based graphic symbols for joy/pleasure, sadness, anger, and scared. Analysis of error types in the emotional expression task showed that children with ASD had a higher rate of nonmeaningful errors compared to meaningful errors. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the emotional expression and recognizing abilities of children with ASD are lower than those of TD children, which may be attributed to difficulties in grasping emotional approaches and overall situational contexts. The results indicate the need for training in scene-based graphic symbol learning when applying augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems for children with ASD.