AS/autism and types of empathy - parent perspective

[Ettina]

Hi, guys, I'm doing a survey intended to be filled out by parents of autism spectrum kids - any functioning level, though it's more intended for HFA. (For those of you who are on the spectrum, don't fill this out about yourselves. Self-report and informant report involve different cognitive processes, and I'm specifically looking for informant report.)

 

It's commonly said that autistic kids lack empathy. But there are different kinds of empathy - the ability to figure out how someone else is feeling, and the emotional reaction you have to your perception of the other person's emotions. Most studies into 'empathy' in autism have only examined ability to figure out how someone else is feeling, and not the emotional reactions the person has when they do figure it out. Of the studies that have examined this area of empathy, some have asked AS people to report on their own experiences, others have measured physiological reactions. No one has examined how parents perceive empathy in their autism spectrum kids.

 

In addition, I'm also interested in studying the relationship between the two types of empathy and certain behavioral/personality traits in autistic kids, as well as whether additional diagnoses (such as ADHD or ODD) influence the child's empathy pattern.

 

If you want to participate, click this link:

 

http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/ettina/empathy-types/

[Sa Skimrande]

Why kids all the time, what is it, is it thought this thing only affects kids, or is it non kids are ignored through embarrassment at the medical services and researcher's failure to help because there is no funding ? What about all those kids that were children and have now turned eighteen and so been forgotten about as they enter the adult world and what about the adult As people, they suddenly don't stop existing you know or suddenly become NT or can suddenly cope, yet these people are expected to start families and go out to work to pay taxes to be ignored by the medical services that at one time were all over them because their age and condition provided funding.....

 

Empathy and AS was a recent topic of conversation on an adult AS forum and from that conversation it was found AS people do have empathy albeit it thought of in a different way, so AS people are capable of this emotion but then researchers and medics aren't interested in adult AS are they so a whole wealth of information pertaining to this condition is lost to them as no one is interested in adults with it, as with AS adults, there is no money in it.

[indiscreet]

Thank you for posting this, Sa Skimrade. You've expressed my thoughts and feelings exactly.

[Special_talent123]

to say we lack empathy is an understatement. We all feel emotions, thats understatement also to say we inable to feel. We all have feelings, I feel pain to situations. I worry about people so i think empathy is an understatement. we just find it difficult to express it in emotion

Edited July 11, 2012 by Special_talent123

[robert7111a]

+1 on all comments so far