Empathy

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My daughter has a number of symptoms, but I don't know enough about asperges to be able to rule it out.

This may seem like a stupid question (but here goes....)

My daughter was so moved by the part in the film 'Wall E ' when he loses his memory, that she began to cry.

Would a person with Asperges do that? (Or do they have so little empathy that they wouldn't?)

I think alot of people were moved by that moment. Lack of empathy for applying it to my life is laughing when my little sister scabs or knee (because I know she's not seriously injured I don't really care so I laugh). I also am not ashamed to say I laughed on 9/11 call me cruel I don't care (IMO it's like admitting you did something bad) Would I do it again who knows. I also remember laughing when a girl stepped on a bee at school. IMO these fall into lack of empathy category but I cryed when some celebrities I knew died and that Wall-E moment pulls at EVERYONES heartstrings! LOL! Hope I helped sort of.

Thanks for replying...although your reply sort of confuses me.

Personally, I have seen people laugh at others misfortunes: I don't know why so-called normal people find this slap-stick comedy. Thus nothing you have written surprises me, however, it makes it difficult to assess if my daughter may have asperges.

I cried at a lot of things when I was a kid. My son didn't cry but he was really upset at that scene in Wall-E. It doesn't rule out Aspergers. If anything my son understood why the robots were doing things more than a lot of other movies. Although the robots faces are partially expressive, they are probably all an Aspie is going to pick up on any person.

Remember, it's not that Aspies don't have emotions, they have a hard time expressing them in the way you'd expect.

Some people on the spectrum have no empathy, but many of us have normal amounts or even too much. Empathy or lack thereof is not diagnostic for an ASD.

Lack of empathy is characteristic of people with schizoid personality disorder (and some other PDs), though. I think people get Aspergers and Schizoid confused (especially when some people look like both). Aspergers as its defined today is autism with no language delay, not schizoid pd, so people with Aspergers can have empathy.

The whole autistic people don't have empathy things is crap. I have seen more caring on these forums than in any neurotypical enviroment. I've cried at movies, more often at music.
And when I see someone in pain it pains me too.
There are those who aren't empathetic, but it certainly isn't something innate in autism.

My 7 year old doesn't react when people say "hello." She seems to be arrogantly ignoring them.

She really wants friends, was lonely at her old school, although she did play with some children some of the time. To me she seems normal. She doesn't seem able to follow instruction promptly, is often in a dream world lost in her thoughts. That latter is something that I had when I was a child...the difference is that I could respond immediately. She doesn't seem able to.

She almost certainly has dyscalculia. It hasn't been diagnosed officially but I have noticed so many things that I am sure. She took a long time to learn to read, and still avoids reading but at least she can now!

She shares my sense of humour of the absurd. I don't think that she doesn't understand jokes.

She has a mild dyspraxia- the doctor discovered that she still has reflexes which actually should have disappeared by this stage in her development. She is not clumsy though.

The one enormous problem that she has, is at school. Her work tempo is very slow.
I wouldn't like her to be labelled but I would like her to be helped.

It might also depend on how old she is. If she's 5, that would be normal. If she's 25, well, she may just be sentimental.

Some of us have too much empathy; we're always worried about hurting other people's feelings, and trying to guess what people mean when they say something. It's just not always under our control.

She could also have ADHD, inattentive type, if her mind is drifting a lot. I had a roommate with that, and she was very scattered and disorganized - her mind would just drift in the middle of things. She'd get overwhelmed easily, too. Ruined a lot of pots when she'd get distracted in the middle of cooking.

I don't think that it is the ADHD thing.

She has one friend at school. This friend sometimes wants to play with the larger group of friends, but they don't want my kid to join in too. The class has problems with cohesion anyway- the teacher admitted that the atmosphere wasn't good. I can't judge what the real situation is.

When I observe her playing with her sisters, it goes well.

Lack of Empathy in aspies is confusing.

There's a big difference between sympathy and empathy - and this is often where the confusion arises in real life.

In your Wall-E example, you are seeing Empathy.

Your daughter is reacting because she's got the whole story - not just the one scene.

Often, life's little problems are made up of single scenes (we don't know the rest of the story) and often feelings aren't made as clear in real life as they are in films. It's quite common for aspies to show plenty of empathy for characters in films and books but not show much for real life situations.

In particular, if a mother on the news is upset that her child is missing, you'll find that your daughter may be unsympathetic (particularly if she doesn't think that the mother was a good one). She may also lack empathy (won't feel the way the mother does) because unless she has the whole story (presented as a story), it might not sink in.