Can people with an autistic disorder learn to be more empathetic?

Well, I麓m not a Pyschologist but have PDD-NOS. And I麓ve been told on MANY occasions (by Psychologists) that automatic empathy is a God-given thing that cannot change. You can only learn to 'compensate' for the lack of it.



Recently I saw a lecture by a professor from the University of Chicago. He was explaining that the degree of empathy is not somehting you were born with. And that higher brain functions influence this automatic pathway.



What does this all mean? Can people with an autistic disorder learn to be more empathetic?Can people with an autistic disorder learn to be more empathetic?
people with down syndrome express empathy, what more of an autisitc. the only difference is that the autistic brain has more gray matter than white matter in the areas where thought process takes place. empathy is an emotion usually produced automatically by the hypothalamus, just like normal people.



given the degree of rudimentary empathy, austistic individuals can be conditioned to actually express it.Can people with an autistic disorder learn to be more empathetic?
Some can...it really depends on the severity of the disorder and the type. Generally, empathy is something learned when very young, and the older a person gets without developing it, the less able he/she is to develop it later on. The more severe the autism, the harder it will be to develop this trait. Parents have a formidable task teaching autistic children empathy, but should always make the extra effort to try, because it's not out of the realm of possibility that some degree of empathy can be learned.