Investigating Mothers’ Empathic Inclination and Mind Reading Levels from Eyes Who Have Children with Autism and Typically Developing Children

The purpose of this study was to investigate empathic inclination and mind reading levels from eyes of mothers‟ who have children with autism (N=26) and typically developing children (N=28). It was a descriptive study which examines comparatively mind reading skills of mothers of children with autism and mothers of typically developed children. In order to assess mind reading skills of mothers “Eyes Test” was used. Also “Empathic Tendency Scale” was used for assessing empathic tendencies and skills of the mothers. According to results, mothers who have normally developed children performed better at mind reading from eyes, than mothers who have children with autism. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between two groups in empathic inclination results. This study has similar results with prior studies.