Empathising and systematising in children with and without autism spectrum disorder
Keywords:
Autism spectrum conditions, children with typical development processes, empathy, systematize, validity and reliability, sexAbstract
It is known that children with autism are insufficient in building empathy. A part of the difficulties in social interaction may originate from the lack of empathy. This research consists of two studies. First study is adaptation of the “Child Empathy Systemizing Quotient” (EQ-SQ) to Turkish culture which is prepared considering the behaviour characteristics of children in the Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) group, and realizing its validity and reliability. This research is conducted with 760 children with typical development processes, aged 9 – 16. The findings show that the Turkish EQ-SQ is a valid and reliable tool. The second study is conducted with 112 children, 32 of them having ASC and 80 not. Through this quotient, the empathy and systematizing abilities of children with ASC are compared with their peers who demonstrate typical development processes. The EQ-SQ levels of the participants are evaluated with their mothers and their demographical values are taken from the mothers. In line with the findings in the literature, the empathy skills of children diagnosed with ASC are significantly lower than children with typical development processes. Among the children with typical development processes, females’ empathy skills are shown to be significantly higher than males.Downloads
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