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Autism and Empathy - Please share your own experiences

NAS66072

Hi all, I'm new to the forum. Pleasure to meet you all.

So I have a 3 year old daughter who we are sure is on the spectrum (still waiting for assessment for her.) I also have a 12 year old son with autistic traits also, although his symptoms are more subtle. Well he took the Ados test a few days ago and we were told that he meets the diagnostic criteria for Autism. They did not give him a final diagnosis yet as they still need to go over his developmental history, but they also stated that his ability to feel empathy did not quite fit in with the autistic profile.

My son does not naturally pick up on other peoples emotions, body language, vocal tones etc. You have to be direct with him, and actually tell him how you feel, but once he is aware he does care, often too deeply.  Now my 3 year old also has deficits in reading emotions, social cues, body language etc but she does not yet show empathy.  After lots of research I have found that people on the spectrum experience this aspect differently and so I would like to ask the community to share your own personal experiences regarding autism and empathy, to help me understand this a little bit better.

Any information you can provide would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Parents

  • I'm still waiting for assessment, but strongly believe I'm on the spectrum. I think I'm empathetic, but don't always come across as such. Like your son, I feel strongly if I'm aware of other people's emotions, but don't always recognise it unless told directly. I'm bad at getting my own facial expression, and tone of voice right, so people who don't know me enough to ignore that can misinterpret my response. And I'm not good at responding immediately which also probably looks like lack of empathy, whilst I'm just processing what has been said.

    It varies, but if someone isn't being direct, then it will take me a while to figure out what somebody's body language or tone is saying. Or if it's a noisy environment then there will be a delay in me processing the words (even if someone is saying how they're feeling directly). Then depending on how strong an emotion it triggers in me, it might take me a bit of time to work out what those emotions are. Then if I'm overloaded it will take a while to come up with a reply. I rarely have enough space in my head to work out what facial expression and tone to use as well, but if I did this would also take more time to process. All the while staring blankly at the person. So I probably come across as not empathetic a lot of the time, particularly if someone is expecting an instantaneous reaction. 

    It depends on the environment and how I'm feeling, sometimes I can process this all in a few seconds. Other times it can be hours or days before I feel an empathetic response to the situation.

Reply

  • I'm still waiting for assessment, but strongly believe I'm on the spectrum. I think I'm empathetic, but don't always come across as such. Like your son, I feel strongly if I'm aware of other people's emotions, but don't always recognise it unless told directly. I'm bad at getting my own facial expression, and tone of voice right, so people who don't know me enough to ignore that can misinterpret my response. And I'm not good at responding immediately which also probably looks like lack of empathy, whilst I'm just processing what has been said.

    It varies, but if someone isn't being direct, then it will take me a while to figure out what somebody's body language or tone is saying. Or if it's a noisy environment then there will be a delay in me processing the words (even if someone is saying how they're feeling directly). Then depending on how strong an emotion it triggers in me, it might take me a bit of time to work out what those emotions are. Then if I'm overloaded it will take a while to come up with a reply. I rarely have enough space in my head to work out what facial expression and tone to use as well, but if I did this would also take more time to process. All the while staring blankly at the person. So I probably come across as not empathetic a lot of the time, particularly if someone is expecting an instantaneous reaction. 

    It depends on the environment and how I'm feeling, sometimes I can process this all in a few seconds. Other times it can be hours or days before I feel an empathetic response to the situation.

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