EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN

Every year, the 2nd of April is World Autism Awareness Day, which was created to highlight the need to improve understanding of autism and improve the quality of life of those affected, so they can lead a full and meaningful life as an integral part of society. Here, we look at the emotional development of children with autism.

TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS

Humans have six basic emotions: Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. In addition, we also experience more complex feelings like Embarrassment, Shame, Pride, Guilt, Envy, Joy, Trust, Interest, Contempt and Anticipation.

The ability to understand and express these emotions starts developing from birth and by around two months, most babies will laugh and show signs of fear. By the age of one year, a typically developing baby can read your face to get an understanding of what you’re feeling. Most toddlers and young children start to use words to express feelings, although you might see a tantrum or two when their feelings get too big for their words!

Throughout childhood and adolescence, most children continue building empathy. They also build skills to manage their emotions and recognise and respond to other people’s feelings. By adulthood, people are usually able to quickly recognise subtle emotional expressions.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand another person’s feelings. We can see the first signs of empathy in babies - for example, babies will cry when they hear other babies cry and toddlers and older children will comfort someone who’s upset.

EMOTIONS AND AUTISTIC CHILDREN

Autistic children often find it hard to:

Recognise emotions, facial expressions and other emotional cues like tone of voice and body language

Show and manage their own emotions

Understand and respond to other people’s emotions - they might seem to lack empathy with others

RECOGNISING EMOTIONS