Effects of Emotional Music on Facial Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Impaired facial emotion recognition in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is in contrast to their intact emotional music recognition. This study tested whether emotion congruent music enhances facial emotion recognition. Accuracy and reaction times were assessed for 19 children with ASD and 31 controls in a recognition task with angry, happy, or sad faces. Stimuli were shown with either emotionally congruent or incongruent music or no music. Although children with ASD had higher reaction times than controls, accuracy only differed when incongruent or no music was played, indicating that congruent emotional music can boost facial emotion recognition in children with ASD. Emotion congruent music may support emotion recognition in children with ASD, and thus may improve their social skills.