Abstract
The majority of studies that have investigated empathic responsiveness of individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have used heterogeneous groups in terms of age, cognitive level and gender which significantly impact the results. Our aim in this study was to explore responsiveness of a more homogenous sample of 21 children with ASD and 17 typically developing controls, aged 8–12 years to both overt (or expressed) and anticipated distress. In the anticipated distress task, groups were not differentiated in their response towards the experimenter who had her drawing torn. In the expressed distress task, groups were again similar in expressing concern and acting prosocially towards an experimenter who pretended to lose her watch. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Author Contributions
AN and CD designed and conducted the study. MU and AN analyzed the data. MU, AN and GV drafted the manuscript. All authors commented on the draft and approved the submission.
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A. N., M. U., G. V., and C. D. declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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This research was approved by the La Trobe University Human Ethics Committee (HEC 07-146). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The research reported here was undertaken as part of the PhD candidature of the first author (AN) under the supervision of the final author (CD).
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Amanda Newbigin and Mirko Uljarević are joint first authors.
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Newbigin, A., Uljarević, M., Vivanti, G. et al. Brief Report: Empathic Responsiveness of High Functioning Children with Autism to Expressed and Anticipated Distress. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 3338–3343 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2862-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2862-x