Empathy may be taught to children with autism using applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to other people's feelings. Four children with autism who rarely or never showed empathy skills received ABA therapy 5 days a week for 5½ hours per day at home and at a therapy center. Special ABA sessions to focus on empathy lasted 20-30 minutes, 4-5 days per week, for up to 10 weeks. The children were 4-8 years old. Therapists used puppets to pair actions with words about feelings during these special therapy sessions. They focused on sadness/pain, happiness/excitement, and frustration. All 4 children learned empathy skills with the puppets. For example, a child would say, "Are you okay?" if the puppet was "hurt." Generalization of empathy skills from puppets to people happened with two children, so that when a person demonstrated emotions they responded appropriately. For two other children, generalization from puppets to people was limited. The authors think it may be more effective to teach empathy skills with people instead of puppets.