The Efficacy and Generalisability of Emotion Recognition Interventions for Autistic Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Emotion recognition (ER) skills have been hypothesised as a potential contributing factor to differences in social communication skills between autistic and non-autistic people. Furthermore, researchers have increasingly sought to improve autistic people’s ER skills via interventions in attempts to facilitate more positive social experiences, particularly in childhood and adolescence. A wide variety of ER interventions have been implemented and tested; however, conclusions regarding the efficacy and generalisability of such interventions have thus far been inconsistent. The purpose of the current systematic review was therefore to evaluate the efficacy of ER interventions in improving autistic children and adolescents’ ER skills, and to examine the extent to which intervention effects generalise to broader social outcome variables, indicating improvements in participants’ real-life social experiences. Importantly, in assessing both the efficacy and generalisability of interventions, the review will take into consideration the ever-growing neurodiversity movement, and will discuss the extent to which the goals, objectives, and outcomes of ER interventions align with the neurodiversity framework. This is particularly important given the increasing emphasis on neurodiversity within autism research. A total of 15 studies were included in the review, and a narrative synthesis approach was utilised to evaluate findings and explore the effects of interventions on ER skills and broader social outcomes. Overall, the review provides evidence that ER interventions may improve autistic children and adolescents’ ER skills; however, generalisation of improvements to broader social outcome variables was not consistently demonstrated, nor was generalisation measured in such a way that is in line with neurodiversity, thus indicating a need to reconsider the true value of ER interventions within a neurodiversity framework. The review addresses fundamental methodological factors which may have impacted findings, and suggests important considerations for future research.