Empathy in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Empathy is an essential component of human social life. It requires the ability to understand another’s mental state and respond with an appropriate emotion or action. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been described to exhibit atypical empathic responses which limit communication...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of autism and developmental disorders Vol. 49; no. 10; pp. 3939 - 3955
Main Author Harmsen, Irene E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.10.2019
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Age Differences
Analysis
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorder - psychology
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Child and School Psychology
Cognition
Diagnosis
Emotion recognition
Emotional Adjustment
Emotional Response
Emotions
Empathy
Evaluation
Female
Gender Differences
Genetics
Humans
Information processing
Intelligence
Male
Mental states
Neural networks
Neurological Organization
Neurosciences
Pediatrics
Pervasive Developmental Disorders
Psychological research
Psychology
Public Health
S.I. : Empathy in Autism
Sensory Experience
Sensory integration
Sensory processes
Severity
Severity (of Disability)
Sex differences
Social Behavior
Social Cognition
Social interaction
Social interactions
Social life & customs
Canada
Autism
Empathy
Asperger syndrome
Autism spectrum disorder
Autistic traits
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Summary:Empathy is an essential component of human social life. It requires the ability to understand another’s mental state and respond with an appropriate emotion or action. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been described to exhibit atypical empathic responses which limit communication and social interactions. This review highlights the clinical characteristics and mechanisms underlying empathy in ASD by summarizing 61 peer-reviewed articles. Studies characterized empathic differences due to sex, age, intelligence, and disorder severity and provided valuable insights into the roles that genetics, neural networks, and sensory processing have in eliciting empathy. This knowledge will lead to improved diagnostics and therapies to improve social cognition, emotional recognition, and the empathic response in patients with ASD.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0162-3257
1573-3432
DOI:10.1007/s10803-019-04087-w