Possibilities of Forming Empathic Reactions in Children with ASD

The purpose of this work was to analyze the possibilities of formation and manifestation of empathy in people with ASD. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), the deficit of socio-emotional reciprocity, which includes a reduced exchange of interests, emotions and affection, is defined as one of the diagnostic criteria of ASD.
The analysis of papers covering this topic has shown that a decrease in empathic manifestations in people with ASD may be associated with unexplored relationships between the affective stimuli and corresponding empathic reactions. To correct this mismatch, a training program aimed at the formation of appropriate vocal and motor reactions in response to affectively charged situations presented was developed. Diagnostics of the initial level of empathic response showed that the main deficiency behind the lack or weak development of empathy is the inability to correlate the context of the situation and the relevance of a certain reaction (even if this reaction is present in the behavioral repertoire).
The implementation of our program showed that 7–8-year-old children with autism can learn to demonstrate socially significant empathic response skills in pre-game conditions, and that these skills can extend to situations and toys not intended for learning, as well as situations in natural conditions. It is connected with the possibility of correlating the context and the relevance of a certain reaction. In other words, we can conclude that empathic response is available for children with ASD.
At the same time, we came to a conclusion that people with ASD are characterized by an inconsistency in manifestation of affective reactions, including empathic ones, which predetermines difficulties in other people’s perceiving of such manifestations. Consistency in the manifestation of empathic response implies the contextual unity of eye contact, facial expressions, intonation accompaniment, and vocal and motor manifestations. As the results of this study show, we can help children and adults with ASD to show contextual components of the empathic response. The integration of empathic manifestations into a coordinated affective response was not observed in this study. To what extent such integration is fundamentally achievable and what are the ways and prospects for the formation of a coordinated empathic response is a question for future research.

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