Components of Empathy in Children: Factor Structure of the Empathy Quotient for Children (EQ-C).
The English EQ-C gives four clear empathy scores so you can pinpoint exactly where a child with SEND needs help.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the English Empathy Quotient for Children (EQ-C) to a mixed group of kids with and without special needs. They ran a factor analysis to see how many clear empathy skills the test really measures.
Parents filled out the 27-item form. The study also asked about sensory issues to check if touch or sound sensitivities line up with weaker empathy scores.
What they found
Four clean factors popped out: emotional empathy, social-cognitive empathy, ease of reading faces, and caring actions. Kids with SEND scored lower in all four areas.
Children who were bothered by loud noises or scratchy clothes had extra trouble on the face-reading and caring-actions parts.
How this fits with other research
Li et al. (2015) showed the Dutch adult EQ is reliable in Western samples. Rebecca et al. now extend that work downward to English-speaking children and give clinicians four sub-scores instead of one big total.
Lau et al. (2013) shortened the adult Autism-Spectrum Quotient to five factors. The new child EQ-C mirrors that approach but targets empathy, not autism traits, giving a matching four-factor profile for the younger age band.
Eggleston et al. (2018) found four sensory-based subtypes in preschoolers with ASD. The current study links sensory sensitivity to specific empathy gaps, adding detail to why some kids struggle more with social cues.
Why it matters
You no longer have to guess which piece of empathy is missing. Run the EQ-C once, look at the four factor scores, and write goals that fit. If sensory issues are high and face-reading is low, add desensitization before social skills training. The tool is free, quick, and parent-friendly.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Empathy is multifaceted, involving sharing and understanding the emotional and mental states of others. This study investigated the factor structure of the English-language version of the Empathy Quotient for Children (EQ-C; Auyeung et al., 2009), an empathy measure previously well-validated only as a global scale. We aimed to compare children with and without educational differences (i.e., Special Educational Needs & Disabilities, SEND), and explored associations between empathy and sensory sensitivities across the whole sample. Based on responses from 680 parents, we analysed data from English-speaking children aged 6-12 years, via a series of factor analyses using polychoric correlation matrices and bass-ackward analysis. Empathy domain profiling for children with SEND status (versus children without SEND status) was investigated as group differences (t tests). Sensory sensitivities were examined via associations (correlation) and net effects (regression). We identified an optimal four-factor solution (emotional empathy, social-cognitive empathy, negative interactions, antisocial behaviours), and robust higher order one-, two- and three-factor models. Children with SEND status displayed empathy differences across all four empathy domains (all p < .001). Children with greater sensory sensitivities displayed significant differences for social-cognitive empathy and negative interactions only (both p < .001). We demonstrated the potential utility of the English-language EQ-C as a domain-level measure of empathy. Our paper discusses how the domains align with traditional emotional and cognitive dimensions in adults and cross-culturally. Our empathy profiles can be used alongside global empathy measures for different groups of children, with and without educational differences and sensory sensitivities.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1177/1524838016683456