Distinct Empathy Profiles in Autism and Social Anxiety: A Comparative Study.
Sigal Tikochinsky, Esther Ben-Itzchak, Gil Zukerman
PMID 40536051WHAT IT FOUND
Emotion recognition from eye pictures did not separate autistic students, students with social anxiety, and controls.
Self-reported empathy did: autistic students reported lower perspective-taking and concern for others than controls, and higher personal distress relative to concern for others than both other groups.
Key findings
01Autistic students reported lower perspective-taking and empathic concern than controls, lower empathic concern than the social anxiety group, and higher personal distress than controls; the social anxiety group also reported higher personal distress than controls.
02The personal distress to empathic concern ratio was highest in the autism group, intermediate in the social anxiety group, and lowest in the control group.
03The personal distress to empathic concern ratio predicted autism versus social anxiety, while perspective-taking did not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The social anxiety group was not clinically diagnosed; it was assigned by questionnaire scores. Twenty-five participants in the autism group also had high social anxiety scores, so the study cannot separate autism from co-occurring social anxiety. Only nine participants in the autism group did not have high social anxiety scores, so comparisons within the autism group were not possible. The sample had 19 female participants, so gender differences could not be examined. The personal distress to empathic concern ratio identified only 47.1% of autistic cases in the model, so it is not ready as a diagnostic screening tool.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The paper notes that the autism integration program cost was covered by the National Insurance Institute.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use the personal distress to empathic concern ratio as a diagnostic test. The model correctly identified 78.6% of students without autism but only 47.1% of students with autism, and the social anxiety group was defined by questionnaire scores rather than a clinical diagnosis.