ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2022
Empathy, Theory of Mind, and Prosocial Behaviors in Autistic Children.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Visual Perspective Taking Training Improves Theory of Mind in Autistic Children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Trial
- Relative Impact of Family Processes and Child and Systemic Factors on Behavioral and Academic Outcomes for Autistic Children in Mainstream Education.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Autistic traits and social anxiety in children and adolescents: the mediating role of theory of mind and social adaptive behavior.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Aberrant multivariate mapping between behavioral profiles and cortical morphological brain networks in children with autism spectrum disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Effects of Peer Exclusion on Prosocial Behavior in Autistic Children Placed in Regular Classrooms: The Mediating Role of Inhibitory Control.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- The Mediating Role of Social Interactions and Early Psychopathological Symptoms in the Relationship Between Empathy and Prosociality in Young Children with ASD and Neurotypical Peers.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Is the Association Between Emotion Recognition and Social Functioning Mediated by Cognitive Empathy and Emotional Language? An Examination of School-Aged Autistic Children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Article
- 'Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Association between autistic features and empathy in Chinese patients with chronic schizophrenia.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2025Article
- Autism and Religion.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Brain structure underlying the empathizing-systemizing difference in children with autism spectrum disorder.World journal of pediatrics : WJP · 2023Article
- Relations between Prosociality and Psychological Maladjustment in Chinese Elementary and Secondary School Students: Mediating Roles of Peer Preference and Self-Perceived Social Competence.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Oxytocin neurons in the paraventricular nucleus and fear empathy among male mice.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPNArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Previous research has suggested that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display fewer prosocial behaviors, and the role of empathy or Theory of Mind (ToM) in prosocial behaviors of autistic children remains unclear. Methods: Data were obtained from an ongoing longitudinal study in Guangzhou, China. A total of 96 autistic children and 167 typically developing (TD) children were enrolled. Prosocial behaviors were assessed using a subscale of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire and Dictator Game (DG) paradigm with stickers as incentives. Empathic traits and ToM ability were measured using the children's Empathy Quotient and the Chinese version of ToM toolkit. Generalized linear models were used to assess the differences of prosocial behaviors and empathic traits, ToM ability between the two groups and the associations between empathic traits, ToM ability and prosocial behaviors in autistic children. Results: Compared with TD children, autistic children exhibited worse ToM ability and performed less pro-socially in the DG paradigm, while there were no differences regarding empathic traits. In autistic children, empathic traits especially affective empathy, were positively associated with parent-reported prosocial behaviors [β = 0.17, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.07-0.27; β = 0.47, 95%CI: 0.33-0.60]. ToM ability was associated with DG paradigm (β = 1.03, 95%CI: 0.16-1.89). Conclusion: Autistic children showed less pro-sociality and ToM ability than TD children. In autistic children, empathic trait was associated with parent-reported prosocial behaviors while their ToM ability was associated with prosocial behaviors in experimental condition. Our findings indicated that better ToM ability and empathic trait might promote prosocial behaviors in autistic children.
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