Between the deficits in communication and social interaction often observed in
individuals with autism, highlights the difficulty in recognizing facial expressions of
emotion. This is one of the most important skills for social interactions are effective,
studies have sought to develop teaching procedures of this competence. This study
aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the use of children's stories, in training for the
recognition of facial expressions of emotion in children with autism. The study included
six children diagnosed with autism, at mild to moderate with age between 6 to 7 years.
The procedure consisted of five phases: Pre-Testing, Training, Post-Test, Test of
generalization and Follow-Up. It was used in the pre and post-test 40 stimuli composed
of drawings and photographs of faces (of different ages and races) with four different
facial expressions - happiness, sadness, anger and fear. The pre-test and post-test
consisted of 10 attempts. In each trial were presented four different stimuli with the four
expressions and it was required that the participant pointed to figure with the words
requested. In training were used 20 stories, five on each one of the expressions. The
stories were submitted and, after, was asked to participant pointing the figure
corresponding to words highlighted in history. The test of generalization was composed
of video presentation of four stories (one of each facial expression). After watching the
video was requested to participant pointing to the figure corresponding to words
highlighted in the video. The Follow-up consisted in the production of the test of
generalization, four weeks after the application of the first test. The criterion of change
of Pré-Teste to the training was 70% of errors and the training for the post - Test to test
the generalization was 90%. The results showed that all participants did not identify
facial expressions of emotion in the pre-test, but began to recognize them after training
and showed widespread performance of recognition of emotions in the test of
Generalization. I Follow - up only participants P1, P2, P3, and P6 maintained the test
performance of generalization. These results indicate that the use of children's stories is
a feature of play - effective teaching to teach the recognition of facial expressions of
emotion to children with autism.
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