The capacity to empathy is an important precondition for development of social competence of a child and also for his/her overall emotional wellbeing. Therefore, the studying of the mechanisms and factors contributing to the formation of this ability is important for developing of the intervention program.The aim of this research was to study the features of the process of empathy in children with mental retardation per se, as well as to study the relationship between child-parent relations and maturing of empathy.The research included the following methods:Neuropsychological diagnosis;The experimental method (presentation of emotionally charged videos);Lüscher Color Test test;Self-assessment of child's emotional response;Drawing of a family;PARI- technique of E. Schäfer, and R.Bell in T.V.Netscheret's adaptation;Statistical analysis included U-Mann-Whitney test, t-Student test and Spearman correlation analysis.The experimental group consisted of 20 children of 6-7 years old with mental retardation (15 boys and 5 girls) and their parents. The control group included 23 children (15 girls and 8 boys) of the same age and their parents. The study has showed that the children of the control group are more emotionally responsive than the children in the experimental group. Child-parent relations in the control group were more satisfactory than in the experimental group. The positive correlation between favorable child-parent relations and the ability of the child to the emotional response has been observed in the control group, but not in the experimental group.

Early childhood autism, or autism spectrum disorders, is an extremely heterogeneous group of conditions that share similar symptoms of dysontogenesis. The most significant comorbidity in patients with autism is epilepsy, which is still associated with a variety of controversies. The present article covers the most controversial aspects of comorbidity between autism and epilepsy, including the impact of psychopharmacotherapy on the risk of epilepsy, clinical significance of epileptiform activity on the electroencephalogram in patients without epilepsy, and criteria for and prevalence of autistic epileptiform regression syndrome. We found that there is still a lack of reliable evidence for the majority of issues related to the combination of autism and epilepsy. We emphasize the need for further studies. We also provide a detailed description of the history, criteria, prevalence, and clinical examples of autistic epileptiform regression syndrome.

Early childhood autism, or autism spectrum disorders, is an extremely heterogeneous group of conditions that share similar symptoms  of dysontogenesis. Epilepsy is the most significant comorbidity in autism. The present article covers various aspects of comorbidity between epilepsy and autism, described in the literature over the last 50 years. This review aims to analyze the development of epilepsy and autism during ontogenesis and to identify causal relationships between these diseases, considering the information on the two age peaks for epilepsy onset in patients with autism.