Social Perspective Taking and Empathy in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

AbstractChildren with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) show sociobehavioral impairments; however, the social cognitiveprofile contributing to these impairments is poorly understood. This study compared social perspective taking andempathy in children with FASD versus typically developing controls (TDC). Thirty-seven children with FASD and21 TDC participated. Measures included parent-rated CBCL and SSIS, and NEPSY-II Theory of Mind, Test of SocialCognition and Index of Empathy. Parents rated the FASD group higher than TDC on indices of behavior problems andlower on indices of social skills and empathy. Children with FASD scored significantly below TDC on tasks requiringcomplex social cognition. The majority of correlations between social cognition and parent-ratings were not significant inFASD and TDC, with the exception of a negative correlation between self-reported empathy and parent-rated behaviordifficulties in TDC. FASD subgroup analyses revealed lower theory of mind and empathy scores among children withARND than pFAS/FAS. With regard to sex, males with FASD were rated as having more behavior difficulties thanfemales, whereas TDC females obtained higher empathy ratings than males. In both groups, females scored higher ontheory of mind and empathy indices. On theory of mind tasks, older children with FASD performed below younger,whereas younger TDC children performed more poorly than older. Children with FASD show reduced functioning onindices of sociobehavioral and social cognition, and the effects are influenced by sex and age. These findings provideinsight into the clinical and social profile of children with FASD. (JINS, 2015, 21,74–84)Keywords: FASD, ARND, Social perspective taking, Empathy, Social skills, Behavior