An Empathetic Post

Over the past couple of weeks I've received some comments that made me smile. Hello to everyone who reads this! I apologize for my lack of posting over the last three weeks. My reason for not posting more is that I've spent most of the month staying late at work writing IEPs*, doing initial evaluations/reevaluations, going to IEP meetings, and making sure all of my files are organized. Organizing my file drawer is calming but it's also time-consuming.

The theme of the day/post is empathy. To better acquaint yourself with the term, I would suggest reading this article from Psychology Today about the three types of empathy.

There is a myth that people with ASDs do not feel empathy. Those of us who are educated on the topic of autism know that this is not true, but the myth is still out there. People with ASDs can and do feel empathy. But we experience it differently than most people. Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg wrote a blog post last June about the three types of empathy and how she and other people with ASDs experience them: On the Matter of Empathy

Recently, one of my students tried to comfort a classmate who was in the midst of a meltdown. This student was saying things like "it's okay" and "don't worry" while attempting to give the classmate a hug. Both have autism. My student saw that this classmate was upset, and in turn, demonstrated both emotional and expressed empathy in much the same way that a typically developing child would toward a friend who had fallen down and scraped their knee. This is not an isolated experience, and this student is certainly not the exception.

Earlier this week, I asked a coworker if I had bothered her the day before with any of my group sessions (hey, I work with first graders and it was a rousing session full of awesome "th" sounds). I've learned that asking such a question is more socially acceptable in the work environment than saying "You're awfully quiet and you're frowning a lot, and it bothers me that you're acting different than normal. I don't want you to feel mad!" (it took quite a long time and some help from a therapist for me to learn how to ease around such topics). I was not able to watch this coworker and know that she was worried and concentrating really hard on something and lost in those thoughts. However, I could see that something was up and I had some concern. Again, perhaps not a "typical" empathetic response but certainly not a lack of empathy.

Also, since it's Autism Awareness Month, I've been using empathy as a way to educate school-age children about ASDs. I read a story called My Friend Has Autism to a class of first grade students and took the opportunity to ask them if they ever did some of the things that the narrator's friend does, like hating to be touched and not looking at people during conversations and wanting their toys to be organized perfectly. Every time I brought up one of the friend's quirks, hands were raised by kids, mostly neurotypical, who did or felt similarly. It was a simple story, but it created an opportunity for some of the students to feel some empathy toward others who behave differently.

*IEP = Individualized Education Program