Guest guest Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Ever since my daughter was diagnosed as an Aspie last fall, or more accurately, when it was first brought up as a potential diagnosis last Spring, I have strongly suspected I have Asperger's syndrome as well. What you are talking about speaks volumes with me. If I see a sad movie, I cry buckets because I can physically feel how sad the person is. If I see someone else crying, I nearly start crying myself. A few years ago, my best friend and her husband decided extremely abruptly to get a divorce after barely a year of marriage. She was my best friend, he was my husband's best friend. I spent the entire day with her after she told me, then had to drive almost 2 hours the next morning to get to my grandparents for Easter, and I sobbed the entire way- heart wrenching, nearly hyperventilating sobs. With me, it's almost always on that end of the emotional spectrum- I'm very tied into sad emotions when I witness them. Happiness isn't as 'contagious' to me, though there are times where I might get a burst of sudden happiness for little reason at all, to the point of laughing out loud. My daughter has always been extremely emotive. A few weeks ago, our lizard died, and when she found out, she sobbed for 2 hours like her little heart was torn out of her. For days afterwards, she would go from happy to tears with almost no warning, and always over the lizard. She may not necessarily know how to act around others when strong emotion is involved, but I can tell she feels the same emotions when it happens. I'm the type of person others love talking to- they say I'm a good listener. It's not that- it's that I have no idea how to react or what to say specifically to the person to make it better. I just know how to listen to them. I think for me, it's that I just have no idea what to do with the sudden rush of emotion. It just hits me like a wave, and I wind up crying for no reason. As I'm typing this, just thinking about that type of emotion has me tearing up and feeling choked up. > > > We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Ever since my daughter was diagnosed as an Aspie last fall, or more accurately, when it was first brought up as a potential diagnosis last Spring, I have strongly suspected I have Asperger's syndrome as well. What you are talking about speaks volumes with me. If I see a sad movie, I cry buckets because I can physically feel how sad the person is. If I see someone else crying, I nearly start crying myself. A few years ago, my best friend and her husband decided extremely abruptly to get a divorce after barely a year of marriage. She was my best friend, he was my husband's best friend. I spent the entire day with her after she told me, then had to drive almost 2 hours the next morning to get to my grandparents for Easter, and I sobbed the entire way- heart wrenching, nearly hyperventilating sobs. With me, it's almost always on that end of the emotional spectrum- I'm very tied into sad emotions when I witness them. Happiness isn't as 'contagious' to me, though there are times where I might get a burst of sudden happiness for little reason at all, to the point of laughing out loud. My daughter has always been extremely emotive. A few weeks ago, our lizard died, and when she found out, she sobbed for 2 hours like her little heart was torn out of her. For days afterwards, she would go from happy to tears with almost no warning, and always over the lizard. She may not necessarily know how to act around others when strong emotion is involved, but I can tell she feels the same emotions when it happens. I'm the type of person others love talking to- they say I'm a good listener. It's not that- it's that I have no idea how to react or what to say specifically to the person to make it better. I just know how to listen to them. I think for me, it's that I just have no idea what to do with the sudden rush of emotion. It just hits me like a wave, and I wind up crying for no reason. As I'm typing this, just thinking about that type of emotion has me tearing up and feeling choked up. > > > We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Fascinating stuff, thank you for sharing. I work with families who have teens on the spectrum. Most report that their child becomes very disturbed if they see a peer who is noticeably upset. Maybe you could attribute that to sensory overload (if the peer is crying) but I often wonder if it is in fact empathy. Due to intellectual disability most of the teens I work with have poor insight but just because they don't understand the " concept " of empathy doesn't mean they don't feel it on a visceral level. I also facilitate a social skills group and I've noticed that every time I get the least bit flustered one student will zero right in on it and say " it's ok " in a very soothing voice. > > > We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. > > I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. > > Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. > > I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " > > Here are some more quotes from the study: > > " People with Asperger's syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? > This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the " intense world " theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. > > There are those who say autistic people don't feel enough, " says Kamila Markram. " We're saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much. " Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents' voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou 's Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. > But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. > Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger's Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition. > " I think that it's a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy, " he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition— " if you've seen one Aspie, you've seen one Aspie, " he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, " I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply. " > So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. > The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called " theory of mind " —later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she's gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? > Normal four year olds know that Sally didn't see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that's where the marble is and they don't realize that other people don't share all of their knowledge. > > It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don't realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. > But that doesn't mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people's experience, they don't care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. > Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, " are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right. " Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger's talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn't deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. > In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams' theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger's. > " If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy " one person commented. " If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me. " > Said another, " I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it. " > Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else's pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. > " These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it's just difficult for them, " says Markram, " It's quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw. " > Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, " My heart is breaking! " Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, " Your heart is breaking into pieces? " He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world” theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,” says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.” Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,” he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,” he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.” So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mind”—later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.” Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy” one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.” Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.” Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,” says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.” Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song "Yesterday" came on the radio, and he got so upset. "Why did she leave?" he kept asking, "And why didn't she tell him why?" He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, "He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself." I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, "You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there." I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, "I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it." Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world†theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,†says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.†Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,†he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,†he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.†So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mindâ€â€”later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.†Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy†one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.†Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.†Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,†says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.†Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 My son has Aspergers, but does not lack empathy. Jenn Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, " My heart is breaking! " Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, " Your heart is breaking into pieces? " He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world” theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,” says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.” Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,” he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,” he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.” So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mind”—later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.” Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy” one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.” Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.” Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,” says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.” Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Why do you say that?  Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me.  From: Jenn To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy.  I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them.  A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant.  Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them.  Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Lora, Is this empathy study on a website? If so, could u please send me the link, I would love to share it on my FB autism support group page, to help other parents.Thanks!Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world” theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,” says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.” Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,” he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,” he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.” So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mind”—later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.” Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy” one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.” Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.” Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,” says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.” Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 I think that is unusual. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 9:20:24 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy My son has Aspergers, but does not lack empathy. Jenn Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song "Yesterday" came on the radio, and he got so upset. "Why did she leave?" he kept asking, "And why didn't she tell him why?" He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, "He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself." I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, "You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there." I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, "I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it." Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world†theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,†says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.†Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,†he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,†he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.†So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mindâ€â€”later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.†Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy†one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.†Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.†Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,†says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.†Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Well, I have an AS father and an AS son and I'm a Special Educator, so I'm just speaking from my personal experience. My son will show concern for someone if he understands the situation or if someone verbally points it out to him. My daughter can go away in an ambulance and he can go about his business if no one says something to him. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 9:26:01 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Why do you say that? Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me. From: Jenn To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Yes I think it’s more typical with Aspergers (which my daughter has) then Autism in general. From: autism-aspergers [mailto:autism-aspergers ] On Behalf Of R. Tucker Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 8:18 AM To: autism-aspergers Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me. From: Jenn To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, " My heart is breaking! " Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, " Your heart is breaking into pieces? " He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite often. I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his brother to find the light switch. I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " Here are some more quotes from the study: “People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by emotion—an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism called the “intense world” theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,” says Kamila Markram. “We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.” Virtually all people with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock. But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior—repetitive movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact—interferes with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals. Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition. “I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack empathy,” he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition—“if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,” he says, using the colloquial term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply.” So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. The second is more emotional—the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy—which is called “theory of mind”—later than other kids was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people don’t share all of their knowledge. It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people have different experiences and perspectives—and the timing of this development varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding the inner state of minds too different from their own—but the nonautistic majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.” Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers. In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. “If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy” one person commented. “If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me.” Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am *very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it.” Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring. “These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just difficult for them,” says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.” Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Well, empathy is like a spelling test. It's not what you know but what you can prove you know/ show you know. If they have it they hide it well.......but these are just the aspies i know. --- Original Message --- Sent: June 11, 2011 6/11/11 To: autism-aspergers Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  I have an AS son, and probably have AS, and I don't think either of us lack empathy. We do have problems showing it, and we can become so absorbed in what we are doing that we don't notice other people, but I wouldn't say we lack empathy. I don't have wide experience with people with AS, but the few I know well don't seem to lack empathy.  Well, I have an AS father and an AS son and I'm a Special Educator, so I'm just speaking from my personal experience. My son will show concern for someone if he understands the situation or if someone verbally points it out to him. My daughter can go away in an ambulance and he can go about his business if no one says something to him.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 9:26:01 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Why do you say that?  Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy.  I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them.  A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, " My heart is breaking! " Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, " Your heart is breaking into pieces? " He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant.  Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them.  Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Well, empathy is like a spelling test. It's not what you know but what you can prove you know/ show you know. If they have it they hide it well.......but these are just the aspies i know. --- Original Message --- Sent: June 11, 2011 6/11/11 To: autism-aspergers Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  I have an AS son, and probably have AS, and I don't think either of us lack empathy. We do have problems showing it, and we can become so absorbed in what we are doing that we don't notice other people, but I wouldn't say we lack empathy. I don't have wide experience with people with AS, but the few I know well don't seem to lack empathy.  Well, I have an AS father and an AS son and I'm a Special Educator, so I'm just speaking from my personal experience. My son will show concern for someone if he understands the situation or if someone verbally points it out to him. My daughter can go away in an ambulance and he can go about his business if no one says something to him.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 9:26:01 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Why do you say that?  Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy.  I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them.  A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, " My heart is breaking! " Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, " Your heart is breaking into pieces? " He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant.  Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them.  Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 That, I think, is what the study posted was about - why they hide it. I am still trying to track down the original research to see exactly what it says.  Well, empathy is like a spelling test. It's not what you know but what you can prove you know/ show you know. If they have it they hide it well.......but these are just the aspies i know. --- Original Message --- Sent: June 11, 2011 6/11/11 To: autism-aspergers Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  I have an AS son, and probably have AS, and I don't think either of us lack empathy. We do have problems showing it, and we can become so absorbed in what we are doing that we don't notice other people, but I wouldn't say we lack empathy. I don't have wide experience with people with AS, but the few I know well don't seem to lack empathy.  Well, I have an AS father and an AS son and I'm a Special Educator, so I'm just speaking from my personal experience. My son will show concern for someone if he understands the situation or if someone verbally points it out to him. My daughter can go away in an ambulance and he can go about his business if no one says something to him.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 9:26:01 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Why do you say that?  Not all autistic kids lack empathy. I know MANY are very sensitive, but lacking empathy is more an Asperger's trait if you ask me.  To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sat, June 11, 2011 8:43:06 AM Subject: Re: Speaking of Empathy  Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy.  I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them.  A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant.  Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them.  Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 The study is available as a .pdf from www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~trinaldi/Markram_Frontiers07.pdf There are a lot of tables with lots of sceintific words, but in between there are paragraphs that actually make sense  Lora, Is this empathy study on a website? If so, could u please send me the link, I would love to share it on my FB autism support group page, to help other parents. Thanks! Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 I don't think it unusual at all. Showing empathy and having it are two different things. Until you see it from the inside, there's really no one except that person who can really say what they feel. > > > > > >>We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about > >>the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago > >>there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the > >>Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with > >>Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact > >>they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of > >>empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite > >>often. > >> > >>I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to > >>lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember > >>when he was four, and the Beatles song " Yesterday " came on the radio, and he got > >>so upset. " Why did she leave? " he kept asking, " And why didn't she tell him > >>why? " He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by > >>playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that > >>everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over > >>the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's > >>emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet. > >> > >>Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut > >>his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes > >>doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light > >>on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the > >>door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, " He > >>could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself. " I explained that > >>when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few > >>minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the > >>bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, " You're right, > >>mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows > >>in there. " I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience > >>it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his > >>brother to find the light switch. > >> > >>I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm > >>always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers > >>teenager that said, " I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. > >>The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it. " > >> > >>Here are some more quotes from the study: > >> > >>“People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often > >>stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like > >>coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by > >>emotion†" an excess of empathy, not a lack of it? > >>This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders > >>and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism > >>called the “intense world†theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the > >>Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental > >>problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an > >>hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response. > >> > >>There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,†says Kamila Markram. > >>“We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.†Virtually all people > >>with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams > >>argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with > >>a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up > >>past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like > >>listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to > >>curl in a corner and rock. > >>But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behavior†" repetitive > >>movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contact†" interferes > >>with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through > >>ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand > >>subtle signals. > >>Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the > >>Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition. > >>“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack > >>empathy,†he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary condition†" “if > >>you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,†he says, using the colloquial > >>term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care > >>about the welfare of others very deeply.†> >>So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of > >>ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at > >>least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from > >>the perspective of another. The second is more emotional†" the ability to imagine > >>what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result. > >>The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy†" which > >>is called “theory of mindâ€â€ " later than other kids was established in a classic > >>experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes > >>a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, > >>Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: > >>Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns? > >>Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they > >>get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ > >>equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 > >>year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they > >>know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people > >>don’t share all of their knowledge. > >> > >>It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people > >>have different experiences and perspectives†" and the timing of this development > >>varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and > >>feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them. > >>But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other > >>people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all > >>the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what > >>others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests. > >>Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding > >>the inner state of minds too different from their own†" but the nonautistic > >>majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind > >>works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.†Thus, > >>when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense > >>interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply > >>failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and > >>those of his peers. > >>In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to > >>support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called > >>WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but > >>socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s. > >>“If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy†one person commented. “If > >>someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other > >>people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were > >>scolding me.†> >>Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am > >>*very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I > >>think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all > >>comes in faster than I can process it.†> >>Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they > >>tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard > >>to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic > >>feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or > >>uncaring. > >>“These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just > >>difficult for them,†says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite > >>capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.†> >>Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for > >>publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is > >>co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in > >>Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, > >>a media watchdog organization. > >> > >> > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 I think you're right, he could see himself in the other boy because it's happened to him so many times, so being with him for a whole day he was able to take the time to understand and figure out how to deal with this boy in an empathetic way. I've said this before but I'll say it again, I am so glad you are here ! You have given me so much insight about my son. Thanks! Estevan, SK Canada -- Re: Speaking of Empathy Thank u for sharing this! And this is so true! Ever since my son was little his emotions have always been close to the surface, he is very, very sensitive to how people are feeling. He cares so much for people, and if he sees him upset or hurt, he often will cry. Even when I am upset, he will cry because he doesn't like seeing me unhappy. I never understood it when people said ASD people lack empathy, because my son never did. He has always been a sweetheart, and loving and forgiving towards others. But like this study suggests, maybe it is more of an empathy overload, and they don't know how to explain how they are feeling to others, and people misunderstand them. A few years ago, I can't remember exactly why I was upset, but I started crying and he asked me why, and I said, "My heart is breaking!" Because he is literal, and very caring, he started crying and said, "Your heart is breaking into pieces?" He got very upset about it, and I had to explain what I meant. Sometimes I forget how literal he can be, so I have to try to choose my words carefully. But after reading this study u shared with us, I think our kids just care so much, that sometimes it is very hard for them. Jenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 It's not unusual to not have empathy, but if you cannot SHOW it it is really not useful for communicative purposes. If you have it and you don't show it's really no good to anyone. To: autism-aspergers Sent: Sun, June 12, 2011 12:21:27 AMSubject: Re: Speaking of Empathy I don't think it unusual at all.Showing empathy and having it are two different things. Until you see it from the inside, there's really no one except that person who can really say what they feel.> >> > > >>We've been talking a lot about empathy in this group lately, and mostly about > >>the lack of empathy in kids on the spectrum. However, a couple of years ago > >>there was a rather radical notion put forth by researchers in a study by the > >>Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The study suggested that people with > >>Asperger's syndrome may look cold to those in the outside world, but in fact > >>they are often overwhelmed by emotion. In others words, they have an excess of > >>empathy, or hypersensitivity to experience that causes them to shut down quite > >>often.> >> > >>I mention this, because my 11-year-old son with Aspergers sometimes seems to > >>lack empathy, but other times he is extremely sensitive to others. I remember > >>when he was four, and the Beatles song "Yesterday" came on the radio, and he got > >>so upset. "Why did she leave?" he kept asking, "And why didn't she tell him > >>why?" He cried about it for three hours. I finally said got him out of it by > >>playing a different Beatles song that had a happier ending, and telling him that > >>everything worked out for the singer. I have lots of examples like this over > >>the years. He's a very loving child, but he can't always read someone else's > >>emotions, but when he can, he's very sweet.> >> > >>Sometimes he's also overly logical. When he was five, he once accidentally shut > >>his 3-year-old brother in the bathroom without the light on. Evan always likes > >>doors shut, but he didn't realize his brother was in there without the light > >>on. His brother of course screamed and I immediately ran over and opened the > >>door for him. I asked Evan why he did that to his brother, and he said, "He > >>could've just turned on the light or opened the door himself." I explained that > >>when it's that dark, you get scared and can't always find the light. A few > >>minutes later, I went back to making dinner, and I saw my son Evan go into the > >>bathroom and shut the door. When he came out, he said to me, "You're right, > >>mom. I turned off the light, and it was pitch black. There aren't any windows > >>in there." I thought it was amazing that he cared enough to try to experience > >>it himself, and he is so logical that he had to see how hard it might be for his > >>brother to find the light switch.> >> > >>I mention this study, because i think it brought up some valid points, and I'm > >>always trying to understand my amazing son. They had a quote from one aspergers > >>teenager that said, "I can walk in a room and feel what everyone is feeling. > >>The problem is that it all comes faster than I can process it."> >> > >>Here are some more quotes from the study:> >> > >>“People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often > >>stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like > >>coldness to the outside world is in fact a response to being overwhelmed by > >>emotionâ€"an excess of empathy, not a lack of it?> >>This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders > >>and their families. It also jibes with new thinking about the nature of autism > >>called the “intense worldâ€� theory. As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the > >>Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, suggests that the fundamental > >>problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency, but rather an > >>hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response.> >> > >>There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough,â€� says Kamila Markram. > >>“We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.â€� Virtually all people > >>with ASD report various types of oversensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams > >>argue that social difficulties of those with ASDs stem from trying to cope with > >>a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up > >>past 10. If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like > >>listening to Lou ’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to > >>curl in a corner and rock.> >>But of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behaviorâ€"repetitive > >>movements, echoing words or actions and failing to make eye contactâ€"interferes > >>with normal social development. Without the experience other kids get through > >>ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand > >>subtle signals.> >>Phil Schwarz, a software developer from Massachusetts, is vice president of the > >>Asperger’s Associaton of New England and has a child with the condition.> >>“I think that it’s a stereotype or a misconception that folks on spectrum lack > >>empathy,â€� he says. Schwarz notes that autism is not a unitary conditionâ€"“if > >>you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie,â€� he says, using the colloquial > >>term. But he adds, “I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care > >>about the welfare of others very deeply.â€�> >>So why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of > >>ASD? The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself, which has at > >>least two critical parts: The first is simply the ability to see the world from > >>the perspective of another. The second is more emotionalâ€"the ability to imagine > >>what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result.> >>The fact that autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathyâ€"which > >>is called “theory of mindâ€�â€"later than other kids was established in a classic > >>experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes > >>a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, > >>Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: > >>Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns?> >>Normal four year olds know that Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they > >>get it right. By 10 or 11, mentally retarded children with a verbal IQ > >>equivalent to three-year-olds also guess correctly. But 80 percent of 10-11 > >>year-old autistic children guess that Sally will look in the box, because they > >>know that that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize that other people > >>don’t share all of their knowledge.> >> > >>It takes autistic children far longer than others to realize that other people > >>have different experiences and perspectivesâ€"and the timing of this development > >>varies greatly. Of course, if you don’t realize that others are seeing and > >>feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them.> >>But that doesn’t mean that once people with ASD do become aware of other > >>people’s experience, they don’t care or want to connect. Schwarz says that all > >>the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what > >>others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests.> >>Schwarz notes that nonautistic people, too, “are rather lousy at understanding > >>the inner state of minds too different from their ownâ€"but the nonautistic > >>majority gets a free pass because if they assume that the other person's mind > >>works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right.â€� Thus, > >>when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense > >>interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply > >>failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and > >>those of his peers.> >>In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to > >>support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the Web site for people with ASD called > >>WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote in to ask whether her empathetic but > >>socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s.> >>“If anything, I struggle with having too much empathyâ€� one person commented. “If > >>someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other > >>people were misbehaving, and if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were > >>scolding me.â€�> >>Said another, “I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues, but I am > >>*very* empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, and I > >>think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all > >>comes in faster than I can process it.â€�> >>Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they > >>tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard > >>to reach out rather than turn away. For people with ASD, these empathetic > >>feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or > >>uncaring.> >>“These children are really not unemotional, they do want to interact, it’s just > >>difficult for them,â€� says Markram, “It’s quite sad because these are quite > >>capable people but the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw.â€�> >>Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for > >>publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is > >>co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in > >>Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, > >>a media watchdog organization.> >> > >>> >> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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