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Poor Facial Affect Recognition Among Boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

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Abstract

Children with Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy (MD) have delayed language and poor social skills and some meet criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, yet they are identified by molecular, rather than behavioral, characteristics. To determine whether comprehension of facial affect is compromised in boys with MD, children were given a matching-to-sample test with four types of visual recognition (Object, Face, Affect, and Situation matching) developed by Lucci and Fein. Within-group analyses on 50 boys with MD found decreased Affect matching relative to the other matching conditions. Between-group comparisons on 20 sibling pairs found the boys with Duchenne performed more poorly only on the Affect-matching condition. Thus, mildly impaired facial affect recognition may be part of the phenotype associated with Duchenne or Becker MD.

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Acknowledgments

We are most indebted to Dorothy Lucci and Deborah Fein and colleagues for generously developing and sharing their Object, Face, Affect, and Situation measure. We thank Elizabeth Flamm for her helpful contributions to the error analysis. We are extremely grateful to all the families who graciously gave their time to participate in this study. This work was supported by grants from NICHD (R29 NS34155), NINDS (R01 NS047918-06A2) and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Department of Neurology, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, P & S Box 16, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    V. J. Hinton

  2. Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    R. J. Fee

  3. Colleen Giblin Research Laboratories and Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    D. C. De Vivo

  4. Department of Neurology, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite Children’s Medical Center, Atlanta, GA, USA

    E. Goldstein

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  1. V. J. Hinton
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  2. R. J. Fee
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  3. D. C. De Vivo
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  4. E. Goldstein
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Correspondence to V. J. Hinton.

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Hinton, V.J., Fee, R.J., De Vivo, D.C. et al. Poor Facial Affect Recognition Among Boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. J Autism Dev Disord 37, 1925–1933 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0325-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0325-5

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