I decided to write about this as a result of an article I posted on SNJ’s social media a while back about autism and empathy. It had such a great response from all our readers that it’s clearly an emotive subject.
Many people posted about how their own children or themselves experience the feeling of others. One comment was, “You can’t taste the food if you don’t open the wrapper,” and another parent commented (about their child), “If he sees suffering of others on TV he gets really upset and even sends his pocket money in appeals to help others.”
There is a lot of information on the web about whether people with a diagnosis of autism experience empathy. Although I haven’t read them all in depth (I would be there forever), I have looked through many of the articles, the summaries and conclusions of some peer-reviewed articles as well as some of the blog/information-type posts.