Facial emotions recognition disorder and it’s relation to Alexithymia in intellectual disability children

The current study aimed to investigate the ability to perceive facial emotions and the occurrence of alexithymia, as well as the impact of facial emotions recognition disorder on the occurrence of alexithymia in children with intellectual disability compared to typically developing children of the same age group. Additionally, the study aimed to uncover the nature of the relationship between facial emotions recognition and alexithymia in children with intellectual disability. The study sample consisted of 30 children with intellectual disabilities (15 males, 15 females) and 30 typically developing children (18 males, 12 females). The Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition Image-Based Intelligence Scale, Facial Emotions Recognition Test, and alexithymia Test for children prepared by the researcher were used. The study results indicated that children with intellectual disability struggle with perceiving facial emotions compared to typically developing children. The study did not find any gender differences in facial emotion recognition among children with intellectual disability. Moreover, the results showed that children with intellectual disability experience alexithymia compared to typically developing children. The study also revealed a significant negative correlation and strong impact between disturbances in facial emotions recognition and alexithymia in children with intellectual disabilities.