Facial Emotion Recognition Skills and Measures in Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Abstract

Facial expressions have significant communicative functions; any changes in the facial muscles help disentangle meaning, control the conversational flow, provide information as to the speaker/listener’s emotional state and inform about intention. Abnormalities in the recognition of facial expressions have been associated with psychiatric disorders. This review focuses on facial recognition abilities in children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Using PRISMA guidelines original articles published prior to August 2019 were identified focusing on the emotion recognition skills of children and adolescents with ADHD and the measures administered. 25 studies were identified with the majority (18) showing some deficits on emotion recognition in children/adolescents with ADHD compared to typically developing (TD) children. The results are synthesized in terms of the type of stimuli implicated (static vs. dynamic), the measures/tasks administered, whether authors differentiated among specific emotion dimensions in the analysis of results, the effect of comorbidity on emotion recognition, and whether greater deficits have been reported for some emotions compared to others. Studies on facial emotion recognition in children and adolescents with ADHD focused mainly on the recognition accuracy of facial emotions, showing inconsistent results and a heterogenous use of measures. It is unknown whether the studies’ participants followed therapeutic plans (other than pharmacotherapy) at the time of the study or before, a factor that may potentially have influenced the review’s results.