Identifying Autism through Empathizing and Systemizing Abilities

Evi Van der Zee and Jan Derksen
Additional contact information
Evi Van der Zee: Department of Clinical Psychology, Radboud University, Montessorilaan 3 A7, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Jan Derksen: Department of Clinical Psychology, Radboud University, Montessorilaan 3 A7, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Baron-Cohen’s Empathizing-Systemizing theory plays a central role in this study due to its success in interpreting the core impairments and strengths in autism. The theory states that low empathizing skills are responsible for the social difficulties in autism, and that high levels of systemizing are accountable for the restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior in autism. We therefore hypothesized that there is a significant discrepancy between a child’s empathizing and systemizing abilities when autism is present. We developed Dutch versions of the questionnaires that are associated with the theory: the Autism Quotient questionnaire, the Empathizing Quotient questionnaire and the Systemizing Quotient questionnaire. As hypothesized, the scores of children with autism on the Empathizing Quotient questionnaire and on the Systemizing Quotient questionnaire (EQ-SQ Child_NL) show a significant difference. Furthermore, the EQ-SQ Child_NL predicts the score of children in general on the Dutch version of the Autism Quotient questionnaire (AQ Child_NL).

Keywords: autism; empathizing quotient; systemizing quotient; Autism Quotient; Baron-Cohen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/4/124/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/4/124/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:4:p:124-:d:115306

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().