Relatively able children with autism were compared
with age- and language-matched
controls on assessments of (1) familiar voice–face
identity matching, (2) familiar face
recognition, and (3) familiar voice recognition. The faces
and voices of individuals at the
children's schools were used as stimuli. The experimental
group were impaired relative to the
controls on all three tasks. Face recognition and voice
recognition correlated significantly
with voice–face identity matching, but not with each
other, suggesting that the recognition
impairments jointly cause the matching impairment. Neither
chronological age nor verbal
mental age were consistently related to the recognition and
matching impairments.
Abbreviations: APT-I: Action Picture Test
Information Scale; CA: chronological age;
MLD: moderate learning disability; SLI: specific language
impairments