Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit difficulties in socialization and communication, especially in emotional understanding. These challenges not only affect their relationships with peers and families, but may also impact their learning and daily life. The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of an emotionally interactive college-designed curriculum based intervention on emotional understanding for individuals with ASD, in order to help individuals with ASD better understand and express their emotions, and thus improve their social interactions and quality of life.

The study divided 130 students with ASD into an experimental group and a control group. Students in the experimental group were enrolled in a college-designed course based on emotional interaction; students in the control group were enrolled in a regular course and the experiment was maintained for one semester. The study used the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), a mental health measurement scale, to assess patients’ understanding of emotions.

Students in the experimental group had significantly higher emotional comprehension scores at the end of the experiment than before the experiment began (P < 0.05), as well as significantly higher emotional comprehension scores at the end of the experiment than students in the control group (P < 0.05).

A college-designed curriculum based on emotional interaction helps students with autism to make emotional understanding and produce positive effects for intervention treatment for students with autism.