People with autism who suffer from face blindness may for the first time be in line for a diagnosis of the condition.
Scientists at City University and King’s College London have created a questionnaire that they say should help doctors to diagnose face-blindness, medically known as prosopagnosia.
However, the difficulty of the questions means that the questionnaire is not likely to be suitable for every individual with autism.
The questionnaire measures the severity of someone’s face blindness. This may help doctors to diagnose a condition that has until now proven elusive but may be highly debilitating.
Lead researcher Punit Shah, of King’s College, said: “In its most extreme form people with face blindness cannot even recognise their family or friends.
“This can have a disabling impact on their life, including their career prospects.”
Face blindness more common than thought
According to Shah, prosopagnosia is increasingly being seen as a more common condition than had been thought. Nevertheless, he said it was still often overlooked.
It is estimated that as many as one in 50 people worldwide have developmental prosopagnosia, which can begin in childhood.
Jason Barton, a neuro-ophthalmologist and director of the Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory at the University of British Columbia, has commented on the way people with face blindness can be misdiagnosed as having autism.
He said: “It turned out that they didn’t have autism at all. It was just that their ability to recognize people was severely impaired.”
A previous study by Barton found that as many as two in every three people with autism have problems processing information about faces.
Non-facial clues
People who have prosopagnosia often use non-facial clues such as hairstyle, voice and clothes to recognise people. The condition is thought to be unrelated to intelligence or general memory ability.
In the new questionnaire, participants are asked about past experiences and whether they agree with such statements as: “When I was at school I struggled to recognise my classmates,” and “Anxiety about face recognition has led me to avoid certain social or professional situations”.
The 20-question quiz can be accessed here.
Published: 4 November 2015
