There are many myths and misunderstandings about how autism spectrum disorder (ASD) changes the way people feel and limited their emotions and sympathy. Master among these myths is that people with autism don't have "normal" empathy and emotions — that autistic individuals are coldly logical and analytical, and cannot relate to other human beings. This is not true. People with autism have the full range of human emotions. They may have a status known as alexithymia, which thwarts their ability to understand and procedure their emotions. It also impedes their ability to communicate those emotions to others.

Autism & Alexithymia

Experts say that what we at present sympathise to exist a misconception about autism is considering of outdated research in the field, dating back to when little was known about the functioning of the disorder.

Writing in The Chat, scientists at the Autism Research Group in London explain that in that location is some truth to people with ASD being very good at analytical problem-solving, just that such people accept the full range of homo emotions. However, they express and feel those emotions in very different ways than neurotypical individuals.

This struggle to place and articulate their own emotions is one of the feature symptoms of autism. In some people, this takes the form of a condition known as alexithymia, a term that literally means "no words for feelings." It is essentially the inability to describe emotions.

Alexithymia is non limited to people with autism. It occurs in 10% of the general population, but as many as 50% of people on the autism spectrum take information technology.

Recent inquiry (like that published in the Cortex journal) has suggested that it is alexithymia, not autism, that hinders interoception, the understanding of what a person is feeling or experiencing in a given moment. This too makes it hard for people with alexithymia to regulate their behaviors.

Alexithymia and autism are very closely linked, merely the boundaries of both disorders are still not fully understood.

Expressing Emotion & Empathy

People with autism sometimes study having potent feelings almost an emotional result even every bit their bodies do not evidence a typically corresponding reaction. For example, someone with autism may not show any signs of grief at a funeral. Similarly, they might say they are feeling calm when they are showing physical signs of agitation and alertness. To other people, this might announced confusing and untrue.

This leads to the appearance that people on the autism spectrum don't show emotion in ways that others would empathise, says writers for Spectrum. This is then taken to hateful that people with autism lack empathy and cannot recognize feelings, which is an incorrect assumption. People with autism who have volunteered for testing reported feeling "typical or fifty-fifty excessive empathy," but agreed that their own power to recognize and communicate these emotions in ways that neurotypical people would sympathise is limited.

Researchers have suggested that autistic people with alexithymia will know that they are having an emotional response to something, but they will not be certain of what the emotion really is. Withal, researchers are too quick to indicate out that not every autistic person volition have alexithymia, and that autism does not crusade alexithymia.

Is Alexithymia the Real Issue?

To determine whether people with autism have "normal" empathy and emotions, the researchers looked at 4 groups of people. The groups were divided into:

  • Patients with autism and alexithymia.

  • Patients with autism but not alexithymia.

  • Patients with alexithymia, but not autism.

  • Patients with neither alexithymia nor autism.

Their testing institute that patients with autism just not alexithymia had normal levels of empathy. Patients who had alexithymia with or without autism were less compassionate, suggesting that it is not autism that is the driver backside the lack of empathy, but the alexithymia.

That beingness said, people who have alexithymia will still intendance about the feelings of other people, but they might not know how to suitably reply to these feelings, specially when the feelings in question are potent, such as to show compassion to someone in grief or to exist patient with someone who is angry. Notwithstanding, patients with alexithymia are still having emotional reactions. A written report in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that such patients "showed more than distress in response to witnessing others' hurting," compared to people who did not have alexithymia.

In fact, the writers for Spectrum contend that alexithymia, more than than autism itself, is to blame for autism existence associated with difficulties in recognizing other people's emotions.

Circuitous Relationships

People with autism often struggle with making eye contact with other people. Existence able to pick upwardly on nonverbal cues from the eyes and oral fissure is a vital part of recognizing emotions, and this is why autistic people struggle. But is that autism, or is information technology alexithymia? Researchers writing in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders found that people on the autism spectrum, regardless of a diagnosis of alexithymia, "spend less fourth dimension looking at faces" than neurotypical people. Nonetheless, when people on the autism spectrum who do non have alexithymia look at faces, they do so in a way like to how neurotypical people exercise.

On the other hand, people with alexithymia, regardless of a diagnosis of autism, do expect at faces for a normal amount of time, but they accept a "disturbance" in the recognition of facial emotions, per a written report in the Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment periodical. This might be why people with alexithymia cannot be easily empathetic or show normal emotions, and why some people on the autism spectrum are better at communicating their emotions than others.

The researchers writing for Spectrum are confident that it is not autism that impairs the recognition of emotions, arguing that since merely half of people with autism take alexithymia, every bit many as l% of autistic people will be able to suitably process and recognize emotions. People who take autism are able to utilize other cues, like context and social guidelines, to make decisions near what to say and how to react rather than relying on an understanding of their ain emotions. People who have alexithymia, but non autism, will struggle to read those cues and so speak or deport in an acceptable way.

Alexithymia and autism have a "complex relationship," writes Frontiers in Psychology, and it is not always like shooting fish in a barrel to encounter how and where they overlap. This does atomic number 82 to defoliation about the emotional and expressive abilities of autistic people and people with alexithymia (who may or may non have autism). Generally speaking, autistic people and people with alexithymia (who may or may not have autism) are capable of having "normal" empathy and emotions, but they will struggle in dissimilar ways to show those emotions in ways that neurotypical people will empathize and wait.

Can Empathy Be Taught?

In that location is a degree to which people who have autism tin can be taught to boost their levels of empathy. Per the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, researchers have found that in studies where autistic patients are shown roleplaying situations intended to elicit empathetic responses (and are rewarded when they display those responses), "people with autism learned how to demonstrate empathy using appropriate words and gestures." In Behavior Analysis in Exercise, researchers explained that they take been able to teach empathy to children with autism, using a combination of modeling, prompting, and reward for focusing on another person's emotions with acceptable phrases, tone of voice, facial expressions, and body linguistic communication.

These techniques take shown promise that empathetic behavior can exist taught. Emotional empathy, all the same, requires other therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy. Other studies have looked at using animals, especially horses ("the ultimate therapists," according to Psychology Today) to help autistic patients develop emotional empathy.

Other researchers have suggested that classrooms should comprise media that is designed to teach children with autism how to recognize and reflect emotions, in such a  way that the didactics process does non overstimulate or overwhelm the students. The idea is that the learning procedure should exist as smooth as possible, which is an important enough guideline for any patient with autism, but especially of import for children who are trying to learn how they can comfortably and conspicuously limited their emotions. Empathy from educators, concludes the researchers, "may therefore facilitate the development of empathy in children with autism."

References

How Autism May Touch on Empathy and Sympathy. (April 2020). Verywell Health.

People With Autism Don't Lack Emotions but Often Have Difficulty Identifying Them. (April 2014). The Chat.

The Validity of Using Self-Reports to Appraise Emotion Regulation Abilities in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder. (May 2005). European Psychiatry : The Journal of the Clan of European Psychiatrists.

Alexithymia. Science Direct.

Alexithymia, Not Autism, Is Associated With Impaired Interoception. (August 2016). Cortex.

People With Autism Can Read Emotions, Experience Empathy. (July 2016). Spectrum.

The Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alexithymia on Judgments of Moral Acceptability. (August 2015). Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

The Role of Alexithymia in Reduced Eye-Fixation in Autism Spectrum Atmospheric condition. (November 2011). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Investigation of Facial Emotion Recognition, Alexithymia, and Levels of Anxiety and Depression in Patients With Somatic Symptoms and Related Disorders. (2016). Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment.

Alexithymia and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Complex Human relationship. (July 2018). Frontiers in Psychology.

Physical Activity in Homes xiii Teaching Empathy Skills to Children With Autism. (February 2013). Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis.

Acquisition and Generalization of Complex Empathetic Responses Among Children With Autism. (Jan 2017). Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Empathy in Patients With Chronic Pain. (February 2018). Psychiatry Investigation.

No Horsing Around About the Human-Equine Bail. (July 2016). Psychology Today.