Contagious sneezing and other epidemics of empathy in young children

Abstract

Abstract Teachers of disturbed children often are exasperated by the inability of these children to maintain their personal boundaries; their high empathy level often leaves them vulnerable to the feeling states of those around them. In contrast, the early childhood teacher is often frustrated by the slowness of the healthy pre‐school child to develop empathic responses. Examination of empathy from a developmental perspective helps provide insight into the uses and abuses of fostering empathic responses in both normal and exceptional children.