Empaths on the Autism Spectrum, Part 1

by Karla McLaren

Can I do this job?





I learned a great deal on paper about Spectrum conditions, but what jumped out most significantly for me was the repeated assertion that Spectrum people are not socially adept because they are “mind blind” and therefore unempathic. This hypothesis is championed by British psychopathology professor and researcher Simon Baron-Cohen, who theorizes that Spectrum disorders involve a lack of function in the mirror neurons that allegedly help us empathize with each other. Hmm.


As it usually happens, the information I received from the academic and counseling-based books only gave me a small piece of the whole story. Those books were merely describing Spectrum people from the outside, so I went back and got books by Spectrum people themselves (such as Donna Williams, Kamran Nazeer, Temple Grandin, and Sean Barron). These stunning autobiographies helped me understand more about how painful and confusing it had been for these people to grow up in what is called the neurotypical world.

Oh, how neurotypical of you






The mind-blindness of everyday people







In short, my friends on the Spectrum were overwhelmingly, intensely, unremittingly, outrageously empathic — not merely in relation to emotions and social cues, but to every possible aspect of their environment.


The mind-blindness of neurotypical privilege





Furthermore, this idea about mirror neurons being healthy in neurotypicals and unhealthy or deficient in people on the Spectrum … it’s only an idea; it’s not a fact. Mirror neurons are not fully understood yet, and it’s not clear whether the original findings in primate studies actually translate into human neurology. This 2008 paper points out eight problems in the mirror neuron hypothesis, and researchers are working to get to the bottom of the real story.







Here’s something that might help. This video is an awesome invitation into the inner life of a non-verbal autistic woman named Amanda Baggs (she posts on YouTube as silentmiaow). In the first part of the video, Amanda shows you her non-verbal language and the way she interacts with her environment. In the second part, Amanda uses a program that interprets her typing into speech so that she can explain her native language to neurotypicals.


Amanda’s mastery of both languages is awesome, as is her ability to explain the “constant conversations” she has with all parts of her environment. This is a powerful commentary on neurotypical privilege — and it’s a real lesson in empathy.

In part 2: Speaking directly with Simon Baron-Cohen

About the Author: Karla McLaren is an author, social science researcher, a cappella arranger, and an empath. She worked as an empathic healer for twenty-five years, and once thought that her empathic skills were mystical. However, she questioned that and returned to college in 2004 to learn about the roots of her empathic skills. She discovered that empathy is a natural human ability, but it looks magical because most of us are so confused about emotions.

Karla is a Certified Human Resource Administrator and a Certified Career Development Facilitator. In her sabbatical from her healing career, she also had the opportunity to work as a Prison Arts Educator for the William James Association’s Prison Arts Project.  She has re-written her 2001 book, Emotional Genius, to include excellent new information — not just from the academic world of sociology, neurology, social psychology, and cognitive psychology, but also from the mythological, poetic, artistic realm where true empathy and deep healing reside. This book is The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You.

Empaths on the Autism Spectrum was written expressly for Autism and Empathy.


18 thoughts on “Empaths on the Autism Spectrum, Part 1

  1. Grayson says:

    What an excellent post. I feel so understood! Thank goodness there are people like you in the world, Karla. Everything you wrote is spot on for me. Wow.

    • Grayson, thanks for your comment! I’m glad this post makes sense to you. When I first saw the empathy in my Spectrum friends, I was really alone in my observations. I’m so glad Rachel started this site and is acting as a mentor and advocate within the community. Yay empaths!

  2. Aspergirl says:

    Thank you for this. I look forward to part 2.

    As a woman on the spectrum, I was not diagnosed until my children began to struggle with socialization and school. This past year has been a year of tremendous growth and finally understanding (accepting) who I am and how I operate.

    I have struggled with the ‘no empathy’ part of the scientific/medical chatter. While I think it is true that when I haven’t experienced the emotional struggle of a situation I can be really unempathetic to others–really NOT understanding why their situation is such a struggle, or even comprehending a struggle. I also know that I read people’s energy far better than I understand their words–it’s exhausting when they do not match and I have to burn a lot of mental capacity to try and ‘figure out’ what’s going on, what’s the right thing to say and how to deal with the situation. Yes, too often, I know things neurotypicals think I shouldn’t, that they thought they had hidden and sometimes don’t even know are there.

    • Aspergirl, I must concur with your confusion and exhaustion when people’s words do not match what they’re feeling. It took me years to figure out what in the world was going on with neurotypicals. My book “The Language of Emotions” is the accumulation of decades of translating between what is true about emotions and what neurotypicals say about them.

      And even today, I struggle to know what to say when people present one emotion, but talk as if they’re having another one — or worse, when they pretend they’re not having an emotion at all.

      I’m working with a group of people now who fetishize logic and reason, and Oh. My. Word! They often get on my last nerve, because they fight like cats and dogs about whatever idea they think is best, and if you say — Why are you so (angry, afraid, frustrated, full of hatred, anxious, etc,), they’ll retort: “I’m being logical and forthright! Emotionalism is a weakness.” Or some such nonsense.

      After a few hours with these folks, I have to go and hang out with animals. Animals are awesome empathically. They don’t lie about anything, especially emotions, and they don’t expect me to lie either. Animals are heaven!

  3. usethebrainsgodgiveyou says:


    I see you as an opposite to Dr. Cohen, in a yin-yang sense. I look forward to Part II.

  4. Juli Miller says:

    How beautifully written, and spot on. It is sometimes so difficult to “explain” autism spectrum disorders (why *dis*order?) to NT’s. It just makes so much sense to see each person for what they are, to understand their unique talents and abilities. In providing programs and services, it is vital that we (the NT’s that run things) remember the perspective that you so eloquently have shared. Thank you for sharing this with the world.

    • Thank you Juli! I like your question about the “dis-“order languaging. Today, I’m thinking about the phrase “high functioning autistic,” which really means NT-approved autistic. It means someone who can pass as a neurotypical, NOT someone who is high functioning within his or her own individual experience of the world.

      I think Amanda Baggs (in the video above) is massively high-functioning, not to mention bi-lingual. But because she’s not passing as an NT, she won’t have the label applied to her. Sigh. What a mess has been made of this situation. Let’s clean it up!

      • Debs says:

        I see that all these posts are a year old or so, but I’m a late-developer… I’ve been told, by neurotypicals! At 53 I’ve just discovered my own ‘autistic traits’, or rather how I’m not totally ‘neurotypical’ and have something like mild Asperger’s Syndrome. The film of Amanda is beautiful. I found myself rocking gently as I watched, looking at the flag waving in the distance, as she waved her hands. In a former life I studied performance art and was quite good at it. This reads and feels like art, like a beautifully constructed self-portrait which permits others to engage by the ‘privilege’ of translation. I didn’t expect the words that appeared, they just added another dimension.
        I’m exploring what ’empathy’ is, my husband is a healer and I have an ability to ‘read’ animal thoughts and pass mine back. The ‘new-age’ frills and nonsense that surround these kind of activities can get depressing; so many of the ‘healers’ or people that lead groups in meditation and mindfulness are actually neurotypical people who are lying through their teeth! I totally agree that the situation needs cleaning up, I’m up for it!

  5. C.Hamilton says:

    In the case of my spectrum daughters, who have a known genetic disorder, the problem is almost *over* empathy- any mood around her they pick up on and magnify. It make life a sea of eggshells.

    • Thank you for your input! You know, in my empathic work, I teach hypersensitive people how to create a felt sense of boundaries around themselves so that they can have some privacy in the presence of the emotions of others. I’m really wondering if there’s not a way to modify the skills I teach to help people on the Spectrum find some peace in this emotionally noisy world?

      I also wonder if I would need to modify the skills at all? I mean, when I hung around with my Spectrum friends, I found that my private, empathic way of being was completely acceptable to them.

  6. […] Here‘s one about how someone, new to a job working with people on the autism spectrum, read all the books in the library on the subject, and came away with some firm ideas (namely: “Spectrum people are not socially adept because they are ‘mind blind’ and therefore unempathic”) that were proven very wrong when she started the job. […]

  7. Liz says:

    Simply brilliant. Thank you for this!

  8. Maureen says:


    You have it exactly right. I have been telling people that my PDD daughter is not without empathy, she has an onslaught of emotions. She is hypersensitive. A TV show where people argue upsets her. She is acutely aware of other peoples’ emotions -she doesn’t always deal with it well. Even when she was small, she was always trying to help other kids- she would give them her toys to make them happy. I think most of what has been written about PDD is wrong- she very much wants to have friends, but she doesn’t know how to listen, which is what makes for a good friend.

  9. kate myers says:

    Loved your essay on empathy


  10. cybelle says:

    i haven’t even finished the article nor read the comments before i had to hop down here and say I COULDN’T AGREE MORE as an empathic mother of a child on the spectrum. AMEN

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