Empathic responding in preschool-aged children with familial risk for autism.
Preschoolers with autism feel less upset when others are hurt but still help, and strong empathy in their high-risk siblings may shield against autism traits.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Laposa et al. (2017) watched preschoolers respond to an adult who hurt herself. Some kids had autism, some had an autistic sibling, and some had no family link.
The team coded two things: how upset the child looked and whether the child tried to help. Parents also filled out a short empathy checklist.
What they found
Kids with autism showed less personal distress but still helped at the same rate as typical peers. In other words, they stayed calmer yet still handed over the band-aid.
High-risk siblings who did not have autism scored even higher on parent-rated empathy than low-risk peers. Strong early empathy tracked with fewer social-affect autism signs later.
How this fits with other research
The picture looks different across ages. Schroeder et al. (2014) saw the same equal helping in first-graders, but Manfredi et al. (2021) found preschoolers with autism helped far less than kids with Down syndrome. The clash fades when you notice Mirella matched children on IQ while M et al. used typical peers—task difficulty and partner choice matter.
Capio et al. (2013) extends the story to older youth: observed empathy looked fine, yet parents still reported fewer real-life caring acts, echoing the new parent-clinic gap.
Stancliffe et al. (2007) first spotted flatter emotional mimicry in autism; the new data add that reduced personal distress can coexist with intact prosocial acts, refining the early claim.
Why it matters
Do not assume a calm face means indifference. Preschool clients may care yet show it in subtle ways. Reinforce any spontaneous help and teach siblings of children with autism to use their naturally high empathy in peer interactions—it may guard against later social-affect symptoms.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Praise and reinforce any small helping act you see during play—band-aid sharing, toy handing, or comforting words.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show deficits in social and emotional reciprocity, which often include empathic responding. The younger siblings of children with ASD (high-risk siblings) are at elevated risk for ASD and for subclinical deficits in social-emotional functioning. Higher levels of empathy in high-risk siblings during the second and third years of life predict fewer ASD symptoms and likelihood of diagnosis. We conducted a multi-method investigation of empathic responding to an examiner's accident in 30 low-risk and 48 high-risk siblings with (n = 12) and without ASD outcomes (n = 36) at 4-6 years of age. Empathic responding was measured through behavioral observation and parent report. Prosocial behavior did not differ by ASD outcome. Children with ASD exhibited lower levels of personal distress than high-risk and low-risk siblings without ASD. Per parent report, high-risk siblings without ASD demonstrated higher levels of empathic responding than low-risk children, while the ASD group did not differ from children without ASD on this measure. Higher levels of observed empathic concern, but not prosocial behavior, were associated with lower Social Affect scores on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule in high-risk children. Results suggest that ASD diagnosis and symptoms are associated with reduced emotional responsiveness to an adult's distress, but not associated with deficits in prosocial behavior at preschool age. Results do not support the idea that empathic responding is negatively impacted in a broader autism phenotype. Findings extend previous research by suggesting that empathy may be a protective factor in the social-emotional development of children with familial risk for ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1621-1628. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1819