Recognising the Facial Expressions of Adults With Mental Handicaps

This study investigated the ability of adults with mental handicaps to pose recognisable happy and sad facial expressions. Happy facial expressions were more likely to be correctly recognised than sad facial expressions when posed by individuals who showed an understanding of happy and sad emotional states. Language comprehension was not associated with the abillity to pose recognisable facial expressions. These findings lead to a discussion of ideas for social skills training with this client group and further research in this area.