Emotions:
- Emotions may develop slowly for an autistic child.
- Identifying emotions in one self and by the facial expressions of others can be difficult.
- An autistic person may appear to lack empathy (the ability to share and understand another person’s feelings).
- There may be less effective emotion regulation strategies.
- A person may not choose to try reappraisal but more likely choose suppression.
- Greater levels of negative emotion in general are reported.
- There might be difficulty recognizing more subtle expressions of feelings or emotions and then knowing how to respond in the situation.
- Faces may be scanned in a more random manner.
- More time may be spent looking at a person's mouth rather than the eyes and may get less information about what someone is feeling.
- A person may have Alexithymia, a condition defined by a difficulty understanding and identifying one’s own emotions.
- Early struggles may lead to significant difficulties in social interaction in later development.
- Three basic emotions recognized in one self and others are "happy", "sad", and "mad".
- Basic emotions with facial expressions that are cross-cultural and universal are "anger", "contempt", "disgust", "fear", "happiness", "neutral", "sadness", and "surprise".
- There may be difficulty with more complex emotions such as "embarrassment", "shame", "pride", "guilt", "envy", "joy", "trust", "interest", "contempt", and "anticipation".
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