Empathy: Understanding and Real Life Behavior in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: A deviant response to the affective state of others is one of the core features of children with autism spectrum disorders. As they grow older, high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) develop a relatively adequate insight into emotions and social situations. However, their spontaneous social emotional skills in everyday life remain hampered.

Objectives: In the current study real life empathic skills of children and adolescents with HFASD and typically developing children and adolescents (children: 6-10 years; adolescents: 16-22 years) were assessed and compared to self reported empathic responses.

Methods: All children took part in an individual interview. Practical empathic skills were assessed during standard situations where the interviewer simulated an affective state. Responses of the child were videotaped and coded. Children’s self reported empathic behavior was examined by asking them how they would react in comparable hypothetical situations.

Results: Initial analysis revealed no differences between the groups of young children (6-10 years) in number of verbal empathic real life responses to the interviewer. When no verbal response was given, typically developing children paid more attention to the interviewer than the group of children with HFASD. In some cases children with HFASD showed no response at all, this did not happen in the control group. In self reported behavior typically developing children included more empathic responses than children with HFASD.

Conclusions: The results affirm the idea that children with HFASD pay less attention to the affective state of others. At a conceptual level young typically developing children gave more empathic responses than children with HFASD. This difference could be explained by a developmental delay in emotional knowledge of children with HFASD. Children with HFASD could also be less liable to give social desirable answers.