Affective behavior among children with autism : assessing child performance and parent-teacher reports in Lebanon

Abstract

This research study was concerned with the recognition of affective behavior in a sample of Lebanese children afflicted with autism. Autism is one of the five Pervasive Developmental Disorders, and it is characterized by repetitive behavior as well as social-interaction and communication deficits. Difficulties in expressing emotions and recognizing affective behavior contribute to the core communication deficits observed among children with autism. The literature has shown evidence for affect-recognition difficulties among children with autism as compared to children of typical development. Such difficulties are also evident though the use of indirect assessments, including parent and teacher reports. Psychological empirical studies concerning such deficits among the autism population in Lebanon seem to be quite minimal in the literature. Therefore the primary purpose of this study was to examine recognition of affective behavior among children with autism and those of typical development in the Greater Beirut region. This was especially important in the Lebanese context given that the most prominent of autism intervention programs in this country seem to attend to speech, psychomotor responses, and academic skills; with little emphasis on affective and social behavior. Age and number of peers were investigated as covariates. Furthermore, the extent to which the scores of the children are consistent with the reports of the parents and teachers was examined. The t-test conducted revealed that children of typical development performed significantly better than children with autism. Age of the child and number of peers did not have any effect on performance on affect-recognition tasks. In addition, the scores of parents significantly differed from those given by the teachers on all subscales of the social skills survey. Also, there were differences between the child’s performance and the ratings reported by the parents and teachers. A main limitation of this study was the sample size, which was a result of th