Link Day: Identifying Facial Expressions

The last few years have been really important, exciting times for autism research.  It seems like we're learning something new about the brain and how it works every day.  One of the most interesting bits of research I've run across is this piece by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on how people with autism identify faces and facial expressions.

Of the 10 youths with autism who were tested, only three had activity in a typical face-processing location known as the fusiform face area. The others tended to analyze faces in a part of the brain normally used for objects, she said.

Another bit of research which came out recently said that those with autism and a risk of autism have a large amount of connections in the front part of their brains, an overabundance of connections, and few which go to any other part of the brain.

 Autism isn't just acting differently, it's how people process things.