Effects of Emoticons Expression Types and Visual Expression Methods on Emotional and Behavioral Change Inductions in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Background Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have significant difficulties in receiving proper emotional recognition, expression, understanding, control, and creating social interactions. For presenting solutions to these kinds of problem, it is necessary to study the role of emoticons of emotion and other visual expression methods as a supplementary way to clearer and easier talks in contextual and non-verbal communication environment. In this study, we conduct a user-experience survey over relationships between the emoticons and behavioral change inductions under various conditions and interactions with different types of emoticons and visual expression methods in ASD children and adolescents. We presume that some specific types of emoticons and visual expressions could be good candidates for helping ASD children and adolescents to communicate with each other especially through a mobile instant messenger (MIM). Methods Various emoticon expression types