Quantity and quality of empathic responding by autistic and non-autistic adolescent girls and boys.
Carolien Rieffe, Rachel O'Connor, Anne Bülow and 5 others
PMID 32967463WHAT IT FOUND
In a lab task, autistic adolescents showed less visible upset when an adult pretended to hurt a finger, but comforted as often as non-autistic peers.
Girls, especially autistic girls, more often asked about feelings; boys more often suggested practical fixes.
Key findings
01Autistic adolescents showed less visible emotional arousal than non-autistic adolescents, while their pro-social comforting responses did not differ by autism group.
02Girls showed more pro-social empathic reactions than boys, and this applied to autistic and non-autistic girls.
03Autistic girls offered emotion-focused comfort more often than autistic boys (75% versus 30%), while boys offered problem-focused solutions more often than girls (11% versus 2%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 16 autistic girls were included, so conclusions about autistic girls are preliminary. The autistic girls had lower IQ indication scores than the other sub-groups, so the sample may represent girls whose autism was recognized early. The study measured outward behaviour in one feigned pain event, not internal empathy or responses to subtler social distress. Some coding agreement was moderate, especially for emotional arousal and pro-social reaction. Data were missing for some outcomes, including IQ indication for 14 participants, attention for 2 autistic boys, and emotional arousal for 6 participants. The task cannot show whether comforting behaviour was genuine or learned, because the study only observed behaviour.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The study was funded by a VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autistic adolescents lack empathy. The study measured visible behaviour during one feigned pain event, and less visible arousal may reflect differences in expression rather than internal feeling.