Acquisition and Generalization of Complex Empathetic Responses Among Children with Autism

Generalization of the modulatory effect of social interaction on personal space

Introduction

Personal space (PS) is a safe area around an individual's body that affects spatial distance when socially interacting with others. Previous studies have shown that social interaction may modulate PS. However, these findings are often confounded by the effects of familiarization. Furthermore, whether the potential regulatory effects of social interaction on PS can be generalized from interacting confederates to strangers remains unclear.

Methods

To answer these questions, we enrolled 115 participants in a carefully designed experiment.

Results

We found that prosocial interaction in the form of a cooperative task effectively reduced PS, and this regulatory effect could be generalized from interacting confederates to non-interacting confederates.

Discussion

These findings deepen our understanding of PS regulation and may be aid in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of dysfunctional social behaviors.

Evaluating the generality and social acceptability of early friendship skills

The development of prosocial skills is considered pivotal to childhood development. The friendship unit of the Preschool Life Skills program teaches early prosocial skills likely to facilitate socially desirable behaviors in young children; however, the friendship unit is the most understudied unit and has produced modest, inconsistent outcomes across children. The current study aimed to evaluate procedures necessary to (a) teach friendship skills to 4 children, with and without developmental disabilities, in an applied context and (b) promote the use of these skills with a same-aged peer. Teaching 5 friendship skills in a 1-to-1 format with the addition of tangible reinforcement, if necessary, was efficacious at increasing the children's friendship skills with an adult. Additional tactics were necessary to promote prosociality with a peer. We discuss refinements to the teaching procedures and additional considerations to improve the social acceptability and durability of prosocial skills.

Speech Prosody Interventions for Persons With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review

Purpose Persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may demonstrate abnormal prosodic patterns in conversational speech, which can negatively affect social interactions. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify interventions measuring the improvement of expressive speech prosody in persons with ASD in order to support clinician's evidence-based decision making. Method We used 13 electronic databases to search for relevant articles using terms related to autism, intervention, and speech prosody. The databases identified a total of nine articles for the title, abstract, and full-text reviews. Five more articles were included after performing descendant and reference searches. One peer-reviewed article was excluded due to insufficient data received from the authors. We coded the resulting 13 articles for report, setting, intervention, outcome, and results characteristics and methodological quality. Results Results showed that interventions specifically targeting speech prosody using established and emerging evidence-based practices across more than 1 treatment day resulted in moderate to large improvements in speech prosody in persons with ASD. Interventions that indirectly targeted prosody or were very short resulted in small or nonsignificant effects. Discussion The results of this literature review suggest that interventions that directly target speech prosody using established evidence-based practices for ASD may be most effective for increasing typical prosodic patterns during speech for persons with ASD. Further research is needed to establish which interventions are most effective for each age range and context. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12735926.

Empathy Measurement in Autistic and Nonautistic Adults: A COSMIN Systematic Literature Review

Empathy is essential for social functioning and is relevant to a host of clinical conditions. This COSMIN review evaluated the empirical support for empathy self-report measures used with autistic and nonautistic adults. Given autism is characterized by social differences, it is the subject of a substantial proportion of empathy research. Therefore, this review uses autism as a lens through which to scrutinize the psychometric quality of empathy measures. Of the 19 measures identified, five demonstrated "High-Quality" evidence for "Insufficient" properties and cannot be recommended. The remaining 14 had noteworthy gaps in evidence and require further evaluation before use with either group. Without tests of measurement invariance or differential item functioning, the extent to which observed group differences represent actual trait differences remains unknown. Using autism as a test case highlights an alarming tendency for empathy measures to be used to characterize, and potentially malign vulnerable populations before sufficient validation.

Empathy Impairment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Conditions From a Multidimensional Perspective: A Meta-Analysis

Background: Although empathy has always been considered to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs), the relevant findings have been inconsistent. The present meta-analysis aims to determine which empathy components are impaired and how culture, gender, and age moderate such empathy impairment.

Methods: By using “Autism,” “Asperger Syndrome,” “Empathy,” and related Chinese synonyms as keywords, we searched the databases of Weipu, Wanfang, CNKI, Web of Science, Science Direct, SpringerLink, and Elsevier through “subject” and “keyword” searches. We also conducted a manual search according to the references. In total, 51 studies from Eastern and Western countries were included in this meta-analysis, which comprised 144 independent effects, 2,095 individuals with ASCs and 2,869 controls without ASCs. For the retrieved data, Hedge's g was taken as the quantitative measure of effect, and CMA V2.0 software was used for publication bias tests (by using Rosenthal's Classic Failsafe-N and Egger's methods), heterogeneity tests (by using a Q-test, I²-test, and H-test) and a moderating effect test (by using a univariate regression model).

Results: The results showed that the empathy impairment evident in individuals with ASCs is component specific; that is, trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, state-cognitive empathy, and state-empathic concern are impaired, whereas state-empathic accuracy remains intact, and trait-empathic accuracy is superior to the trait-empathic accuracy in neurotypical individuals. The univariate regression model showed that gender moderates the impairment of the trait-empathic concern, trait-empathic accuracy, and state-cognitive empathy in autistic individuals and that age moderates the impairment of the trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic accuracy, state-empathic concern, and state-empathic accuracy in autistic individuals. However, culture does not moderate any empathy components (trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, or state-cognitive empathy) involved in the present meta-analysis.

Conclusions: These findings contribute to ending the controversy over the empathic integrity of individuals with ASCs and shed some light on future research about the empathy impairment of autistic individuals. More specifically, subsequent studies should distinguish specific empathy components and consider the role of gender and age when demonstrating empathy impairment in individuals with ASCs. Moreover, related studies based on Asian collectivist cultural samples and female samples should be further enriched.