Brief report: development of the adolescent empathy and systemizing quotients.
A 40-item teen EQ and SQ now exist and act like the adult ones, giving you a fast way to flag social-cognitive style in clients aged 12-16.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Auyeung et al. (2012) built two short checklists for teens. One tracks empathy. One tracks systemizing.
They gave the 40-item forms to 12- to 16-year-olds with and without autism. Then they checked if scores looked sensible and stable.
What they found
Both teen scales were reliable. Girls scored higher on empathy. Boys scored higher on systemizing.
Teens with autism scored lower on empathy and higher on systemizing, just like adults do.
How this fits with other research
Baron-Cohen et al. (2004) and Wakabayashi et al. (2007) built the adult EQ and SQ. Bonnie’s team trimmed wording so younger teens can answer.
Rogers et al. (2007) found adults with Asperger’s show low cognitive empathy but normal caring feelings. The teen EQ mixes both types, so it still flags a gap. The studies do not clash; they just measure different slices.
Koegel et al. (2025) later used AI chat drills to raise empathy scores. Their trainees were the same teens the new scales can first spot.
Why it matters
You now have a quick teen form that takes five minutes. Use it at intake to see where social coaching should start. Pair low empathy scores with AI or group role-play lessons. Track change every few months.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Adolescent versions of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ) were developed and administered to n = 1,030 parents of typically developing adolescents, aged 12-16 years. Both measures showed good test-retest reliability and high internal consistency. Girls scored significantly higher on the EQ, and boys scored significantly higher on the SQ. A sample of adolescents with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) (n = 213) scored significantly lower on the EQ, and significantly higher on the SQ, compared to typical boys. Similar patterns of sex differences and cognitive brain types are observed in children, adolescents and adults, suggesting from cross-sectional studies that the behaviours measured by age-appropriate versions of the EQ and SQ are stable across time. Longitudinal studies would be useful to test this stability in the future. Finally, relative to typical sex differences, individuals with ASC, regardless of age, on average exhibit a 'hyper-masculinized' profile.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2012 · doi:10.1007/s10803-012-1454-7