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

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