Are there positive effects of having a sibling with special needs? Empathy and prosociality of twins of children with non-typical development

Yonat Rum; Shir Genzer; Noam Markovitch; Jennifer Jenkins; Anat Perry; Ariel Knafo-Noam

doi:10.1111/cdev.13740

Are there positive effects of having a sibling with special needs? Empathy and prosociality of twins of children with non-typical development

Yonat Rum^*, Shir Genzer, Noam Markovitch, Jennifer Jenkins, Anat Perry, Ariel Knafo-Noam

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study examined whether typically developing (TD) twins of non-TD children demonstrate enhanced empathy and prosociality. Of 778 Hebrew-speaking Israeli families who participated in a twin study, 63 were identified to have a non-TD child with a TD twin, and 404 as having both twins TD. TD twins of non-TD children (27% males) were compared to the rest of the cohort of TD children (46% males) on measures of empathy and prosociality. Participants were 11 years old. TD twins of non-TD children scored significantly higher than TD twins of TD children in a measure of cognitive empathy (d =.43). No differences were found in emotional empathy and prosociality. The specificity of the positive effect on cognitive empathy is discussed.

Original language	American English
Pages (from-to)	1121-1128
Number of pages	8
Journal	Child Development
Volume	93
Issue number	4
Early online date	23 Feb 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13740
State	Published - 1 Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was funded by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 1670/13). We thank LIST participants and the research assistants. The study was partially supported by The Centre for Canadian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israeli‐Canadian Collaboration Grant to A.K.‐N., A.P., and J.J.), and by an Azrieli Fellowship (to A.P.). The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Child Development © 2022 Society for Research in Child Development.

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title = "Are there positive effects of having a sibling with special needs? Empathy and prosociality of twins of children with non-typical development",

abstract = "This study examined whether typically developing (TD) twins of non-TD children demonstrate enhanced empathy and prosociality. Of 778 Hebrew-speaking Israeli families who participated in a twin study, 63 were identified to have a non-TD child with a TD twin, and 404 as having both twins TD. TD twins of non-TD children (27% males) were compared to the rest of the cohort of TD children (46% males) on measures of empathy and prosociality. Participants were 11 years old. TD twins of non-TD children scored significantly higher than TD twins of TD children in a measure of cognitive empathy (d =.43). No differences were found in emotional empathy and prosociality. The specificity of the positive effect on cognitive empathy is discussed.",

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AU - Perry, Anat

AU - Knafo-Noam, Ariel

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 1670/13). We thank LIST participants and the research assistants. The study was partially supported by The Centre for Canadian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israeli‐Canadian Collaboration Grant to A.K.‐N., A.P., and J.J.), and by an Azrieli Fellowship (to A.P.). The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Child Development © 2022 Society for Research in Child Development.

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Are there positive effects of having a sibling with special needs? Empathy and prosociality of twins of children with non-typical development

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