Autistic People's Experience of Empathy and the Autistic Empathy Deficit Narrative.

Background: There is a dominant discourse, both in clinical texts and throughout the academic literature, that autistic people lack empathy; however, over the past decade, both clinicians and academics have increasingly rejected deficit-based descriptions of autism in favor of more nuanced explanations of the experience of autistic individuals in a social world.

Methods: This study asked 76 autistic individuals about their own experience of empathy and the oft-cited empathy deficit. Data were thematically analyzed and revealed a wide array of empathic self-concepts among respondents.