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.
