Cognitive empathy. Opinion

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I have a friend who has a lot of autistic traits. I’m trying to talk them into getting a diagnosis, they seem to be considering it. They have severe sensory issues(severe) and severe problems with change, they have severe issues with people placing demands on them also(these seem to be the most severe)They are also dyslexic(diagnosed), I also suspect they have Adhd(not diagnosed). The things that suggest they haven’t got an ASD are that they have good cognitive empathy, and debilitating affective empathy(he feels everyone’s emotions to an extreme extent but I know affective empathy is not affected in asds and some feel it a lot ). He reads facial expressions well also(scored 64 on test). And in general is very good at reading others emotional state in person. They took the Simon Baron Cohen empathy quotient and scored 37 which is well under the threshold. They scored 26-28(can’t remeber exact score on simon Baron Cohen’s ASD test. Is it possible to have an ASD which having good cognitive empathy,easily reading facial expressions. Also doesn’t seem to have obsessions in the special interest sense, they wouldnt get overly upset if they couldn’t do it. They had a delay(milestones) in speech and walking. They are exceptionally intelligent also. One of the most intelligent people I know. Brilliant mind. Thinks out of the box. And has this ability to do anything if you say they can’t do it, if you tell them, you can’t do something, they will do it and achieve it, but if he had to do it because you asked him he would get severe anxiety. So is it possible to have an ASD with good cognitive empathy,good reading of facial expressions,no obsessions in strict sense,etc Cheers in advance.

Well, we're dealing with a spectrum disorder, and I don't suppose many real people fit all the diagnostic criteria. I see the DX as more of a constructed legal threshold thing, and not often a great deal of use.

Also these reductionist screening tests aren't diagnostic. If I were studying my powers of empathy, I wouldn't use the EQ test. Empathy has become a dodgy term IMHO, I'd want to look at more specific aptitudes where I knew what was being measured.

There are many autistic traits, and not everyone has them all to the same degree. You can even be completely NT for some traits but still have others severely enough to be considered to have ASD. No two aspies are alike.

Here's a good comic that explains this:
http://the-art-of-autism.com/understand ... planation/

If they are smart and old enough it is possible they just learned reading facial expressions and human emotions/behaviours just like they would learn a foreign language.

It's not like we can't read facial expressions and such - we just don't learn them intuitively. We need to observe, understand and memorize them first and practice recognizing various version of them in various people next. It can be done and it's not even that difficult for someone with above average IQ. Just the method is different compared to most people that just "get it" and requires some focus both while learning and while using. It's not a matter of an intuitive hunch but a cognitive pattern recognition. The result is the same - we can read people, even quite fast - once we have enough real life practice and are not tired/under shutdown.