Emotional Functioning and Social Problems in Young Children with ASD

Background: The origin of externalizing problems in early childhood is related to children’s emotional functioning. Two aspects of emotional functioning are important in this respect: the ability for understanding and regulating the own emotions, and the ability for empathy, understanding and responding to others’ emotions.

Objectives: In this study we examined the extent to which empathic capacities in preschool children with ASD are related to adaptive social functioning as compared to their typically developing (TD) peers.

Methods: Parents of 59 children with ASD (mean age 4 years, 7 months, range 21-72 months) en 49 TD children (mean age 4 years, 3 months, range 19-76 months) filled out questionnaires about their child regarding their social functioning (CDI, Ireton, 1992); empathy (Rieffe, Ketelaar & Wiefferink, 2010); and the degree of autistiform characteristics (ECI, Gadow & Sprafkin, 1997).

Results: Compared to their TD peers, parents of children with ASD score their children lower on adaptive social functioning, they note more behavioral problems, and they observe less empathic understanding and behaviors in their child with ASD. Yet, the level of empathic contagion does not differ. Additionally, regression analyses show that the level of empathy contributes to the prediction of more adaptive social functioning, but not when controlled for the level of autistiform characteristics.

Conclusions: These outcomes suggest a mediating role of the severity of the autistiform characteristics in the relation of empathy and social functioning in children with ASD.