Exploring Autistic Awareness Of Emotions In Recent Research

As our understanding of human behavior has improved, one question that remains is how aware autistic people may be of the emotions of others. Recent research suggests that a great deal of previously held beliefs about the lack of emotional awareness among autistic people may be wrong. This article outlines recent research, while also exploring some of the implications of the findings.

Historically, autism was thought to be associated with a lack of empathy and connection with others. Studies going as far back as the 1960s suggested that autistic individuals struggled to recognize and express emotions, and were rarely capable of accurately interpreting the emotions of those around them. This understanding was born out of a lack of evidence to the contrary, with researchers struggling to find any evidence to suggest that autistic individuals could identify and respond appropriately to emotions.

However, more recent research paints a very different picture. A 2014 study examining the capacity of autistic people to correctly recognize emotions within facial expressions found that autistic individuals showed a significantly improved capacity for accurately recognizing emotion when compared to their non-autistic peers. The authors commented that “Our results show that when given the appropriate instructions, autistic people show a greater ability to express and recognize facial expressions of emotion than non-autistic people.”

Furthermore, a 2017 study concluded that autistic people show advanced levels of both empathy and emotion recognition in certain circumstances than previously documented. It found that autistic people exhibited much higher levels of self-reported empathy and facial emotion recognition than non-autistic individuals when given specific instructions on how to best present themselves socially. This suggests that, perhaps, many of the assumptions made about the inability of autistic people to understand the feelings of others have been unfounded.

The implications of these studies are far reaching. For a long time, it was believed that individuals on the autism spectrum would likely require the assistance of a non-autistic person to recognize emotions in others. This new research suggests that this may not be the case - that given the appropriate guidance, autistic people can recognize emotions in others. Furthermore, those same individuals may exhibit greater levels of empathy and emotional understanding than non-autistic counterparts given the proper resources.

This new understanding of autistic emotional awareness may cause a significant re-think amongst those working in the fields of mental health, education and autism research. The need to provide naturalistic learning environments and instruction tailored to the specific needs of autistic individuals may become apparent.

It cannot be denied that these recent studies have challenged existing assumptions about the emotional awareness of autistic individuals. While more research must be conducted to draw definitive conclusions, it appears that autistic people may be more aware of the emotions of others than previously thought. This insight may have tremendous reach in informing future methods of support and intervention for those on the autism spectrum.