Most Cited JCPP Articles #40 of 60

Two age groups of normal, autistic and subnormal children were tested for their ability to recognize the faces of peers from isolated facial features and inverted photographs. The normal and subnormal subjects found the upper regions of the face most helpful for identification, whereas the younger autistic children found the lower features more helpful. The older autistic children showed no specific reliance on any one area, but were found to have error scores as low as those of the younger autistic children on the recognition of lower parts and error scores as low as the; controls on recognizing upper portions. The results are discussed and are found to favour a hypothesis in which the autistic child’s familiarity with the mouth and/or eye areas is related to a cognitive deficit which affects the processing of both verbal and non‐verbal interpersonal communication.