Recognition of basic affective prosody in children with autism spectrum conditions: A three-level meta-analysis based on emotional dimension theory.

This study looked at how well autistic children recognize emotions in people's voices compared to other children. Autistic children showed small but meaningful difficulties, especially with recognizing positive emotions and high-intensity emotions. They also had more trouble when emotions were expressed in full sentences rather than single words, suggesting they struggle more when processing becomes complex.

This meta-analysis examined emotional tone recognition in 16 studies of autistic children compared to typically developing peers. Results showed autistic children have small but significant difficulties recognizing emotional tone in speech (Hedges' g = -0.277). Key findings reveal autistic children struggle most with positive emotions, high-intensity emotions, and emotions conveyed through complex sentences rather than single words. The emotional dimension of valence (positive vs negative) was a significant moderator of group differences.

These difficulties were particularly pronounced when semantic content was presented in sentence form, suggesting information processing challenges in complex contexts.

Assessment should evaluate emotional prosody recognition, particularly for positive emotions and complex linguistic contexts. Interventions may benefit from targeting positive emotion recognition and gradually increasing semantic complexity. Social communication programs should consider emotional valence and processing load when designing activities.

The abstract does not report total sample size across studies or specify individual study characteristics. Between-study heterogeneity was significant, indicating variability in results. Age and presentation methods did not account for observed differences, suggesting other unmeasured factors may influence outcomes.

The recognition of basic affective prosody in children with autism spectrum condition (ASC) was investigated using a three-level meta-analysis. The analysis focused on emotional dimensions-namely, the three core attributes of emotion (arousal, valence, and dominance)-as well as experimental factors such as chronological age, sample size, stimulus presentation (stimuli with pure prosody or neutral semantic content), and semantic presentation (words and sentences). We examined how these features influenced affective prosody recognition in children with ASC. The meta-analysis comprised 16 empirical studies.

A random effect model revealed a small but significant effect size (Hedges' g = -0.277). Egger's test and fail-safe N indicated an absence of publication bias. Heterogeneity analysis revealed a significant between-study variability, and no significant within-study heterogeneity was detected. Age, stimulus presentation and semantic presentation method did not significantly account for the observed between-study heterogeneity.

However, significant group differences between ASC and typically developing (TD) children emerged when the semantic content was presented in a sentence form. Moreover, valence was a significant moderator. The difference between ASC and TD children was greater for positive-valence than negative-valence emotional expressions. Additionally, group differences were more pronounced for emotional expressions characterized by high arousal and high dominance.

Furthermore, children with ASC exhibited greater difficulty recognizing affective prosody embedded in semantically complex contexts. In basic affective prosody recognition, children with ASC appear particularly sensitive to emotional valence. This finding is consistent across cultures. Moreover, the results of the meta-analysis were discussed in relation to the impacts of cue integration, information overload, impaired social cognition, abnormal neural system activation, and the development and accumulation of social experiences on children with ASC.