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The purpose of this study is to investigate empathy skill levels of children with high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome between the ages of 9 to 16 in terms of diagnosis, age and gender variables and compare the results with typically developed peers. This study was designed as a relational survey method, which is one of the descriptive methods. The subjects were 28 children with autism spectrum disorder (HFA and AS) and 42 typically developed children. Data collected via an adapted version of the “Empathy Scale for Children” and demographic forms. The results indicated a significant difference in empathy skill levels of the children with different diagnosis. The study reveals that children with high functioning autism (HFA) have lower empathic skills, whereas children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) do not differ from typically developed (TD) children in terms of empathic skill levels. Female children with HFA have a higher performance on a self-report empathy questionnaire than male children with HFA and there is no significant difference between females with HFA, AS and TD females. On the other hand, females with AS and HFA autism revealed slightly lower performances. According to the results, younger children (n