So if autistic people "don't have empathy" how come they understand me?

[lingle]

Seriously, can someone explain this autism and empathy thing to me?

Because those of you with autism seem to be bloody good at empathy when you're supporting me and others online.

ds1 has aspergers and has empathy. He gets upset etc.

I think it's a narrow definition of empathy for ASD - that it's not lack of empathy = uncaring, but lack of empathy in terms of finding it difficult to read people's faces/voices etc in real life to guage how they are feeling or finding it hard to predict how someone might react to say a blunt comment. (or just not perceive a comment as being blunt rather than truthful).

also bear in mind that it can be much easier for people with ASD to communicate by the written word, than have to deal with sensory issues/social anxiety etc of face to face meetings.

thanks nmc. Hope everyone will take this question in the spirit it's intended. I am genuinely interested in how these preconceptions arise. Also, I think many parents intially being told their child is "autistic" would be afraid that child won't be empathetic. And fear is a such a powerful and negative thing.

By the way, I just wanted to send you best wishes at the moment. I never post on your threads about your DCs because I can't add anything helpful but I do think of you and I appreciate your help and suggestions with my issues.

I think it;s more perceptual.

Many people with autism can have problems with something like depth perception, so faces look flat. Try reading emotions in a flat blobby face.

I've wondered that too?
Ds (9) has empathy in some situations - I think it is those he has experience of! For instance when the story of the 7year old (ASD)boy and GM killed by the train broke he noticed my sadness (unmanned train crossings are an parental nightmare especially if dc has asd)!!). He was a bit puzzled so I explained how sad it was especially for the mummy who had lost her child and mother. He said (as if in comfort) they can make another one (boy)! But he was sad at the GM. I think he could see you cannot 'make' a new GM and he has a GM (who was ill recently) so knows she is precious. He also overheard the newsflash yesturday where a car had been stolen (locally) from a mother de-icing her car for the school run. He burst into tears and asked 'what about the boy'! He assumed the child had been carried off by the thief and was prepared to go after him! (the mother was knocked under the car and is seriously hurt but fortunatly perhaps he has no understanding of that - he heard only that she had not been 'stolen'.

I realise I have mixed up empathy and imagination! Sorry! ( Ds has both but limited imagination impacts on his ability to understand and therefore empathise)

Ds can...but doesn't empathise automatically.
He cannot imagine what it is to be me...or you... without help or without the situation expanded on.
Once the situation has been interpreted to him he shows empathy. Always a time delay though. He is very kind though (he hasn't a malicious bone in his body)... and will go out of his way to make someone feel better once he realises there is something wrong.
Also...he doesn't like doing it (the reading the situation part)...he sometimes gets panicky about imagining to be someone else...it's a bit of a brain overload situation for him i think
Also he gets things completely wrong occasionally...sometimes mistakes a cry for a laugh .... so he may laugh when someone is crying (he thinks he is joining in).He also mistakes a cross face regularly for a surprised face (got him into many a scrape at primary school)

...it's a blardy minefield for him

Yes Ds often mistakes shock or crossness for laughter - and er joins in too . He sometimes puts his arm round me when I am pensive - I think he sees me touch my face/ drop my chin (movements rather than expressions) as if tearful!

Dd1 mistakes happy tears for sad tears, she finds the x-factor realy upsetting as they cry when they have got through to the next round or cry when they have been voted off.

Empathy? Yup, many of us can manage it on some level. Yet there's differences and problems.

Let me try to explain...

a) I can't see your expressions or body language or hear your tone of voice that well. I'm reliant on you saying "I feel sad because...". On here, luckily, people use words, not expressions.

b) I can't use expressions or body language or tone of voice that well, which means face to face people might think I'm a rude so-and-so whereas I'm trying desperately to work out what you're feeling and try to make my body do the right thing to express empathy.

And, c) I'm not always sure who you are if I meet you face to face, so I have a 'default setting' and even if I work out who you are, it takes me ages to try to rummage about in my mind's filing cabinet of handy facts on you to work out what I know about you. If it's not written in the individual message I'm responding to on here, the chances of me remembering it from your other thread are about zero .

Also, I can switch it off. It's a manual thing, this empathy. I can deal with listening to really traumatically sad events by switching the empathy thing off.

Mine is also fact based. It's wrong for people to suffer, to feel pain, to be poor, to be bullied etc, therefore logically we should do something to help - a practical something. It's a problem when people just want me to listen, because I can do that, but it's not logical. I'd rather help them fix it so have had to learn the hard way to Shut Up. {oops)

Different, yet it works. That's the challenges and advantages of our sort of empathy, from my point of view.

I have sympathy, lots of it, but not much empathy. But maybe that's just me. Sympathy is easy, hugs and reading others posts to see how to gauge the mood. Being able to put myself in someone else's shoes, can't do it very easily.
And what Amber said

What Totalchaos says about the written word plus Amber says, also I find it easier to empathise if I have actually experienced what I'm supposed to be empathising with. For example I know what it feels like to have been through a divorce, so I can empathise with that.

Very very interesting, thank you.

So for some autistic people it may be purely or chiefly a face-signals/voice signals issue, meaning that online there's an equal playing field.
Is it fair to say that autistic people are also less likely to instinctively capture and keep accessible an opinion and mental portrait of new individuals? So, for instance, I have a character in my mind associated with various mumsnet names like Xenia, Anna8888, etc, but you wouldn't tend to have?
If that's right, then presumably playground/office gossip is something austistic people wouldn't tend to do in real life? In so far as it's discussing trivial things about other people purely to exchange, sort and reinforce impressions of them and to strengthen bonds between the gossipers?

Well, speaking for myself rather than Bullet123 or MaryBeWaiting etc, I'd say you're right, Lingle. It takes me absolutely ages to build up any sort of data on individuals.

Think of it this way. Suppose you have a whole brain 'filing cabinet' full of info on people. If you open the drawers, you can take out the file for Fred and look through it and find out what Fred likes and doesn't like, what Fred normally sounds like and looks like, what you last said or did with Fred etc. You can also open up the files for Sid, Harriet, Jenny, Zak, Jas, etc and look at all of them, think about how they get on together, who said what about who, etc. Yes?

Open the same drawer in my mind, and there's a big jumble of almost blank pages in there, some with the word 'Fred' written somewhere on it, but no real clue what Fred looks like, acts like or otherwise. If I want info on Fred, I have to spend about half an hour searching through every sheet and putting it together to give me some clues. Then the minute it's back in the drawer again, it unfiles itself back into a mess. Forget any ideas about me being able to look at more than one person at once. My brain just can't work that fast.

Not so for pictures of things or places or animals. I can find info on them very fast indeed. Something's wrong with the filing system for people.

It's why if someone's angry with me, it can be such a big deal. I can't find the info on them to work out why, and even if I can, I can't find any info about other people at the same time. So they're the total focus of my brain and it's like 100% of the world is angry with me all at once. I can't think, "Oh but Sid isn't angry, and neither is Carol", because my brain can't load their info at that time. I need people to help me 're-load' the right info to get me to calm down, once I've had some space to think.

Gossip? I quite enjoy it, but 'who it's about' is fairly irrelevant to me. I'm just fascinated at what people do or don't do. It's nothing to do with me strengthening relationships (no clue how to do that) - it's pure information-exchange.

Amber how brilliantly explained to us ley folk, having spent a few hours today at a post diagnosis clinic re DD Asp I think I shall print your words off for the psyche to use as an explanation in the next session, its absolutley cystal clear, so a very big thank you for taking the time to answer so in depth that its very easy for me to understand!

"Being able to put myself in someone else's shoes, can't do it very easily"

Bullet, most NT people tend to think we are better at empathy than they really are. Hence when you are worried about your child people offer their advice/theory/story about their own child.

So perhaps your greater awareness that you aren't in their shoes is part of the reason why you offer effective support to other mums online?

Again, one misconception gets blanketed across the entire spectrum, no empathy, no eye contact, no interest in making friends, what a load of bull of course.

my child has lots of empathy and runs to children who are crying and puts his arms round them. he comforts me if i bump my head, etc etc.

its impossible to use a statement and attribute it to such a large proportion of our population, asd or not asd.