Posts Tagged ‘empathy’

Books can help children with autism learn empathy and understand emotions

May 31, 2010

Children with autism are often very poor at identifying, understanding, and regulating emotions. They are usually especially deficient in empathizing, or understanding that other people have emotions. Emotion coaching is an area that doesn’t get enough attention.

The levels here are listed as beginner, intermediate, and advanced for simplicity. For kids who can’t read you can still read the books to them and break them down into simple terms. These books are great for neurotypical kids as well, of course.

These books on emotions are different than ones on social stories or social skills. There are many excellent books on learning to share, having good manners, and being safe and careful. Those are all necessary and great but books on emotions take it a step further.

To see the rest of my article on examiner.com, click here.

Advertisement

LOGICAL WOMAN AND EMPATHETIC MAN MAKE HISTORY: First-Ever Instance of Man Understanding Emotions while Woman Uses Reason

January 20, 2010

MINNEAPOLIS – For the first time in recorded history, a woman used “logic,” defined as “reason or sound judgment,” ahead of emotion in dealing with her boyfriend, while her boyfriend simultaneously placed more importance on understanding her emotions than attempting to fix their problems using only his perspective.

The historic moment occurred Tuesday afternoon when Polly Piatkouwski and John Tuttle “validated” each others’ thoughts by listening and repeating back what each other said, a strategy that has been previously believed to be theoretically possible, but heretofore never actually been verified to have occurred organically.

“I decided to listen to what she was saying and tried to put myself in her position,” Tuttle said.  Meanwhile, Piatkowski said she used “reason,” defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “the power of intelligent and dispassionate thought, or of conduct influenced by such thought.”

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,” Piatkouwski opined.  “But I’ll probably go back to letting my emotions rule my thoughts, being indirect, and expecting John to read my mind.”  Tuttle said he planned to return to trying to fix problems, taking things literally and ignoring intangibles rather than listening to his girlfriend and understanding where she’s coming from.

Still, the moment will be chronicled and celebrated for decades to come, historians say.  “If it happened once, it could happen again,” said Nicholas Johnson of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Sociologists say women have used logic before.  They also have multiple records of men being emotionally aware and validating what women say.  However, this has never been accomplished to anyone’s knowledge by the same couple in the same situation.

Psychologist Norman Greenbaum said he believes that the couple’s claims are plausible.  “With hundreds of millions of couples having argued throughout America’s history, I believe this may have even happened another time at some point before and just gone unnoticed.”

Greenbaum said that it would be statistically possible for a man to be empathetic while his girlfriend uses rational sense to solve a problem.  He stated that this phenomenon may even occur again at some point.  However, cynics say the couple may be perpetrating a hoax, claiming that the odds of such an event are just too high to have actually occurred during the same situation.

(Note:  The above is a satire and not related to any particular situation.  It is written in the style of articles on the onion.com. Sometimes I write blogs or website content that is exaggerated or intended to be humorous.  Not everyone will like it or get it. It reminds me of a story in which comedian Gilbert Gottfried was bombing, but continued to do more and more of the same material on purpose despite the audience’s reaction).