Empathy enables people to share, understand, and show concern for others’ emotions. However, this capacity may be more difficult to acquire for children with hearing loss, due to limited social access, and the effect of hearing on empathic maturation has been unexplored. This four-wave longitudinal study investigated the development of empathy in children with and without hearing loss, and how this development is associated with early symptoms of psychopathology. Seventy-one children with hearing loss and cochlear implants (CI), and 272 typically-hearing (TH) children, participated (aged 1–5 years at Time 1). Parents rated their children’s empathic skills (affective empathy, attention to others’ emotions, prosocial actions, and emotion acknowledgment) and psychopathological symptoms (internalizing and externalizing behaviors). Children with CI and TH children were rated similarly on most of the empathic skills. Yet, fewer prosocial actions were reported in children with CI than in TH children. In both groups, affective empathy decreased with age, while prosocial actions and emotion acknowledgment increased with age and stabilized when children entered primary schools. Attention to emotions increased with age in children with CI, yet remained stable in TH children. Moreover, higher levels of affective empathy, lower levels of emotion acknowledgment, and a larger increase in attention to emotions over time were associated with more psychopathological symptoms in both groups. These findings highlight the importance of social access from which children with CI can learn to process others’ emotions more adaptively. Notably, interventions for psychopathology that tackle empathic responses may be beneficial for both groups, alike.

同理心使人们能够分享、理解和关心他人的情绪。然而，由于社会接触有限，听力损失儿童可能更难获得这种能力，而且听力对移情成熟的影响尚未得到探索。这项四波纵向研究调查了有和没有听力损失的儿童同理心的发展，以及这种发展如何与精神病理学的早期症状相关联。71 名听力损失和人工耳蜗植入 (CI) 的儿童和 272 名听力正常 (TH) 的儿童参与了研究（时间 1 的年龄为 1-5 岁）。父母对孩子的移情技能（情感移情、对他人情绪的关注、亲社会行为和情绪承认）和心理病理症状（内化和外化行为）进行评分。患有 CI 和 TH 儿童的儿童在大多数共情技能上的评分相似。然而，CI 儿童报告的亲社会行为少于 TH 儿童。在这两个群体中，情感同理心随着年龄的增长而下降，而亲社会行为和情感认同随着年龄的增长而增加，并在儿童进入小学时趋于稳定。CI 儿童对情绪的关注随着年龄的增长而增加，但在 TH 儿童中保持稳定。此外，较高水平的情感移情、较低水平的情绪承认以及随着时间的推移对情绪的更大程度的关注与两组中更多的精神病理学症状相关。这些发现强调了社交访问的重要性，通过社交访问，患有 CI 的孩子可以学会更适应性地处理他人的情绪。尤其，