empathy/experience/expression

what is the relationship between empathy and expressiveness? is it expression we empathize with in the first place, and not experience? children, for example, are concentrated in their expression -- they openly sob, pout, and laugh. we empathize with them most directly, perhaps not because they are 'helpless' as is often taken as folk wisdom, but because they (must) demonstrate (thanks to this helplessness) their emotional experience with the most clarity and overtness. the autistic experience may have something to do with this -- if expression is fractured from experience we lose empathy in losing any way to predict that experience. we feel guilt when animals are hurt or killed because we can see what they express and relate that to our experience of that expression. whether they have nerve and physical experiences in that same vein that we do is irrelevant to what they communicate to us and the responsibility we feel to it. plants, for example, seem to make willfull choices which suggests a sense of experience, yet they can express nothing in what that is empathetic to human beings. we, rightfully and thankfully, feel no sense of empathy and responsibility to a plant. if empathy is completely dependent on expression we will continue to empathize only with those who can express their experiences in a way that we can process.