Ni, Chee Hui (2025) Emotion recognition in children with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and typical development with exploratory observation on comorbid case. PhD thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
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Abstract
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and comorbid ASD + ADHD often exhibit challenges in emotion recognition, which can impact social functioning. This study aimed to investigate the unique and shared emotion recognition profiles of children with ASD, ADHD, ASD + ADHD, and typically developing (TD) peers. A total of 17 children (15 males, 2 females; mean age = 9 years) participated, including 5 with ASD, 6 with ADHD, 1 with comorbid ASD + ADHD, and 5 TD children. Using a two-phase methodology, Phase 1 involved translation, cultural adaptation, and pilot testing of a screening questionnaire - selected modules from the Autism-Tics, ADHD, and other Comorbidities Inventory (A-TAC) used in phase 2 to categorize participants into diagnostic groups. Phase 2 utilized computerized experimental tasks, including a Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) task and Affective Prosody (AP) task, to assess and compare visual and auditory emotion recognition abilities across the groups. Given recruitment constraints, the initial 4 × 2 factorial design was adapted, and analyses were conducted using ANOVA, ANCOVA, and regression to examine group and modality effects while accounting for age and FSIQ. Findings revealed no significant group-level differences in overall emotion recognition accuracy. However, across conditions, children performed significantly better in visual than in auditory emotion recognition, highlighting a consistent modality effect. This suggests that visual cues, particularly facial expressions, may represent a relative strength, whereas auditory prosody presents greater challenges across groups. These results imply that interventions may be more effective when they build on visual strengths while providing targeted support for auditory processing difficulties. The absence of strong diagnostic or cognitive predictors further underscores the potential value of shared, transdiagnostic approaches to intervention, rather than disorder-specific models. Future research should prioritize larger and more balanced samples to clarify the impact of comorbidity and individual variability on emotion recognition profiles.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | visual emotion recognition |
| Subjects: | R Medicine R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
| Divisions: | Kampus Kesihatan (Health Campus) > Pusat Pengajian Sains Perubatan (School of Medical Sciences) > Thesis |
| Depositing User: | Mr Abdul Hadi Mohammad |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jun 2026 03:33 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Jun 2026 03:33 |
| URI: | http://eprints.usm.my/id/eprint/63778 |
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