TY - JOUR
T1 - Alexithymia and Autistic Traits as Contributing Factors to Empathy Difficulties in Preadolescent Children
AU - Speyer, Lydia Gabriela
AU - Brown, Ruth Harriet
AU - Camus, Lorna
AU - Murray, Aja Louise
AU - Auyeung, Bonnie
N1 - Funding Information:
Bonnie Auyeung was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No.813546, the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund TRUST/VC/AC/SG/469207686, and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ES/N018877/1) during the course of this work. The study sponsors had no part in the design, data analysis and interpretation of this study, in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to submit the paper for publication, and the authors’ work was independent of their funders. We thank Martha Cordero Homberg and Jean Skelton for their assistance in data collection. We extend our thanks to the families who took part in the study. The authors have no financial relationships or conflicts relevant to this article to disclose.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Recent evidence suggests that, contrary to traditional views, empathy difficulties may not be a core feature of autism; but are rather due to co-occurring alexithymia. Empathy, alexithymia and autistic traits have yet to be examined concurrently in children. Therefore, we examined the co-occurrence of empathy difficulties and alexithymia in 59 typically developing and 5 autistic children. Multiple measures (self-report, parent-report and a behavioural task) were used to evaluate empathy and to assess differences in self- and parent-reports using multiple regressions. Alexithymia was found to predict empathy significantly better than autistic traits, providing support for the alexithymia hypothesis. From a therapeutic perspective, results suggest autistic children who screen positive for elevated alexithymic traits may benefit from additional support targeting emotion identification.
AB - Recent evidence suggests that, contrary to traditional views, empathy difficulties may not be a core feature of autism; but are rather due to co-occurring alexithymia. Empathy, alexithymia and autistic traits have yet to be examined concurrently in children. Therefore, we examined the co-occurrence of empathy difficulties and alexithymia in 59 typically developing and 5 autistic children. Multiple measures (self-report, parent-report and a behavioural task) were used to evaluate empathy and to assess differences in self- and parent-reports using multiple regressions. Alexithymia was found to predict empathy significantly better than autistic traits, providing support for the alexithymia hypothesis. From a therapeutic perspective, results suggest autistic children who screen positive for elevated alexithymic traits may benefit from additional support targeting emotion identification.
KW - Alexithymia
KW - Autistic Traits
KW - Children
KW - Empathy
KW - Multi-Informant Approach
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103425856&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10803-021-04986-x
DO - 10.1007/s10803-021-04986-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 33788077
SN - 0162-3257
VL - 52
SP - 823
EP - 834
JO - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
JF - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
ER -