Empathy in children with autism and conduct disorder: group‐specific profiles and developmental aspects

Schwenck, Christina; Mergenthaler, Julia; Keller, Katharina; Zech, Julie; Salehi, Sarah; Taurines, Regina; Romanos, Marcel; Schecklmann, Martin; Schneider, Wolfgang; Warnke, Andreas; Freitag, Christine M.

doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02499.x

Cited by 235 publications

(219 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Finally, the BES-C could prove useful for studying empathy from a new perspective, particularly in children who display impaired empathy, such as those with autism spectrum disorder (e.g., Bons et al, 2013;Schwenck et al, 2012). This would extend the current literature on empathy in middle childhood.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

et al. 2015

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We adapted the adult French version of the Basic Empathy Scale to French children aged 6-11 years, in order to probe the factorial structure underlying empathy. A total of 410 children (189 girls and 221 boys) were instructed to fill out the resulting Basic Empathy Scale in Children (BES-C). Results showed that, as in adulthood, the three-factor model of empathy (i.e., emotional contagion, cognitive empathy, and emotional disconnection) was more relevant than the oneand two-factor ones. This means that as early as 6 years of age, children's responses should reflect the same organization of the three components of empathy as those of adults. In line with the literature, cognitive empathy increased and emotional disconnection decreased in middle childhood, while emotional contagion remained stable. Moreover, girls exhibited greater emotional contagion than boys, with the reverse pattern being observed for emotional disconnection. No sex difference was found regarding cognitive empathy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

et al. 2015

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“…Early research suggested empathy impairments were characteristic of ASD based on ToM limitations (Baron-Cohen 1995; see Yirmiya et al 1998, for a review), but more recent research indicates more nuanced empathic strengths and challenges in ASD (Senland and Higgins-D'Alessandro 2013;Rueda et al 2015). ToM, often used interchangeably with cognitive empathy in ASD studies (Schwenck et al 2012;Rueda et al 2015), refers to the capacity to interpret others' mental states, such as their intentions, feelings, and wants (Baron-Cohen 1995). While children and adults with high functioning ASD can often pass basic ToM tasks (Bowler 1992;Dahlgren and Trillingsgaard 1996), they often, but not always (Begeer et al 2010;Scheeren et al 2013), experience impairments on advanced and naturalistic ToM tasks that assess more subtle ToM difficulties in comprehending intentions when people say things they do not mean (Schwenck et al 2012), interpreting animated stimuli interacting in ways that suggest intentionality (Jones et al 2010), or understanding intentions, deception, and sarcasm in videos of conversations (Mathersul et al 2013).…”

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confidence: 97%

“…This study took a multidimensional approach to empathy, considering cognitive and affective empathy as distinct capacities (Davis 1983;Rogers et al 2007;Rueda et al 2015;Schwenck et al 2012). Davis' (1983) terminology is used; thus, cognitive empathy refers to perspective-taking; affective empathy refers to empathic concern and to personal distress.…”

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confidence: 99%

Sociomoral Reasoning, Empathy, and Meeting Developmental Tasks During the Transition to Adulthood in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Senland

Higgins-D’Alessandro

2016

J Autism Dev Disord

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This mixed methods study investigated sociomoral reasoning, empathy, and challenging and supportive factors during the transition to adulthood in emerging adults (18-27-years-old) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to better understand how these variables facilitated positive developmental outcomes. Same-aged ASD (n = 22) and typically developing (TD) (n = 22) groups completed quantitative and qualitative measures assessing these constructs. Compared to the TD group, the ASD group had significantly lower sociomoral reasoning and perspective-taking, significantly higher personal distress, but similar empathic concern. Inductive content analysis showed those with ASD and better developmental outcomes more often discussed the value of informal social support and utilized perspective-taking during challenging sociomoral situations.

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“…Deficits in social cognition, e.g., inferring others' mental states such as emotions and perspective taking, are at the core of the disorder [2,3,4]. Socioemotional functions such as empathic feelings (being emotionally affected by someone else's emotions) have also been suggested to be aberrant, though less consistently [5,6,7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Social Cognition through an Imitation- and Synchronization-Based Dance/Movement Intervention in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Controlled Proof-of-Concept Study

Koehne

Behrends

Fairhurst

et al. 2015

Psychother Psychosom

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Background: Since social cognition is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), this study aimed at establishing the efficacy of a newly developed imitation- and synchronization-based dance/movement intervention (SI-DMI) in fostering emotion inference and empathic feelings (emotional reaction to feelings of others) in adults with high-functioning ASD. Methods: Fifty-five adults with ASD (IQ ≥85) who were blinded to the aim of the study were assigned to receive either 10 weeks of a dance/movement intervention focusing on interpersonal movement imitation and synchronization (SI-DMI, n = 27) or a control movement intervention (CMI, n = 24) focusing on individual motor coordination (2 participants from each group declined before baseline testing). The primary outcome measure was the objective Multifaceted Empathy Test targeting emotion inference and empathic feelings. Secondary outcomes were scores on the self-rated Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The well-established automatic imitation task and synchronization finger-tapping task were used to quantify effects on imitation and synchronization functions, complemented by the more naturalistic Assessment of Spontaneous Interaction in Movement. Results: Intention-to-treat analyses revealed that from baseline to 3 months, patients treated with SI-DMI showed a significantly larger improvement in emotion inference (d = 0.58), but not empathic feelings, than those treated with CMI (d = -0.04). On the close generalization level, SI-DMI increased synchronization skills and imitation tendencies, as well as whole-body imitation/synchronization and movement reciprocity/dialogue, compared to CMI. Conclusions: SI-DMI can be successful in promoting emotion inference in adults with ASD and warrants further investigation.

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Empathy in children with autism and conduct disorder: group‐specific profiles and developmental aspects

Cited by 235 publications

References 39 publications

The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

Sociomoral Reasoning, Empathy, and Meeting Developmental Tasks During the Transition to Adulthood in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Fostering Social Cognition through an Imitation- and Synchronization-Based Dance/Movement Intervention in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Controlled Proof-of-Concept Study

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