It takes two to tango: Understanding Autistic people's mental states and facial expressions

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Only 32% of autistic people are in paid employment, compared to 80% of non-disabled people. Onereason for the under-employment of autistic people is thought to be the difficulties they have with socialcommunication and interaction, and the difficulties that non-autistic people have in understanding them.Previous research has involved asking autistic people to produce 'posed' facial expressions in theabsence of real social interaction. These posed facial expressions do not reflect the complexity of socialcommunication between autistic and non-autistic people. The posed facial expressions of autistic peoplealso appear less atypical than the expressions they produce spontaneously. Spontaneous facialexpressions tell us more about how autistic people respond to, and are understood by, non-autisticpeople in real-life settings such as the workplace.Little research has been conducted into the effect of familiarity on the facial expressions of autisticpeople, and even less has involved face-to-face social interactions. To truly understand thecommunication failures that take place between autistic and non-autistic people, and the degree towhich these are influenced by social familiarity, it is important that we observe autistic and non-autisticpeople interacting together in a natural way.This could help develop our understanding of the ways in which autistic communication differs, thefactors which affect how they are understood, and how we can use this information to enable moreautistic people to access employment.