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Poster #54 - Empathy Differences Among Children with Conduct Disorder, Callous-Unemotional Traits, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Thu, March 21, 2:15 to 3:30pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall BIntegrative Statement
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share some traits with those who display callous and unemotional (CU) traits, a specifier for conduct disorder (CD), including a dearth of empathy (Blair, 2005). The current study examined differences in empathetic response among clinical groups of preschoolers who applied to an early intervention summer treatment program (Graziano, Slavec, Hart, Garcia, & Pelham, 2014). At intake, parents and teachers completed the Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD; Pelham, Gnagy, Greenslade, & Milich, 1992) rating scale, and an abbreviated version of the Inventory of Callous and Unemotional traits (ICU; Frick, 2004; Hawes et al., 2014).
The independent variable was group membership, distinguished by diagnosis. For the CD group, three or more symptoms from the DSM criteria were present. For the CU group, children with scores above one standard deviation of the ICU mean score were selected. A previous diagnosis from a medical professional/psychologist was required for children in the ASD group. The two dependent variables were the children’s reactions to signs of damage/distress, measured by empathetic responses operationalized as behaviors indicating concern, and behaviors indicating disregard, ranked hierarchically and scored on Likert scales.
The sample comprised 45 kids (Mage = 4.98, 77% male). Two one-way Bayesian ANOVAs with post-hoc tests were performed. Default uniform priors were used to calculate Bayes factors (BFs; Rouder, Morey, Speckman, & Province, 2012), as there was no precedent from previous work. Traditional frequentist analyses were also performed. Results showed that for measures of concern, both the CU group (p = .002, ηp2 = .21) and the ASD group (p = .002, ηp2 = .20) differed significantly from the CD group, but not from each other (p = .988). No significant differences in disregard were found among the groups. For behaviors of concern, the diagnosis model had more support than the null model. The probability of the model given the current data under the alternative hypothesis was more likely (.96). The data increased the prior model odds (BFM = 25.72) and were a little more than twenty-five times more likely to have occurred under the diagnosis model, (BF10 = 25.72 ± 0.008). Post hoc tests indicated that children in the CD-only group were about 13 times more likely to display concern than children in the CD/CU group (BF10 = 13.20± <.001%) and about 11 times more likely than children in the ASD group (BF10 = 11.07± <0.001%). For behaviors of disregard, the diagnosis model was not well supported. The probability of the model given the current data under the null model was relatively more likely (.79). The prior odds changed in favor of the null (BFM = 3.83), and the data were less likely to have occurred under the diagnosis model, (BF10 = 0.26 ± 04). Implications of this findings for diagnostic classification, developmental trajectories, treatment methodology, and public and familial perception are addressed.