Autism and Emotion Regulation – Dr Martin Fracker

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Engage in More Verbal Aggression with Greater Intensity than Others

Quetsch and colleagues compared 450 autistic children to 432 neurotypical controls based on caregiver reports of aggressive behavior. Their analysis of results indicated that, across development, autistic children engaged in more verbal aggressive behavior with greater intensity than neurotypical children, although the degree of difference diminished as the children grew older.

Aggressive Behavior by Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Is Influenced by the Environment

To what extent is the aggressive behavior of youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) moderated (or aggravated) by attributes of their environment? Brown and colleagues tried to answer this question based on caregiver reports for 511 ASD youth. Overall, their data indicated that demographic and environmental factors accounted for up to 40% of the variance in children’s aggressive behavior. The main factors influencing reported aggressive behavior were:

Family income
The child’s age and social communication skills
Parental distress arising from having to deal with a difficult child

Besides these factors, the researchers also found a slight effect of family warmth as measured by the Family Environment Scale and Caregiver-Child Dyad Satisfaction, but this factor barely accounted for an additional one percent of the observed total variance.

High Functioning Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Are Less Able to Process Their Emotions

Hill and colleagues compared 27 high functioning adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to 35 neurotypical controls and 49 biological relatives. They found that ASD individuals were less able to process their emotions and, perhaps for that reason, more depressed than both the controls and the relatives. Their findings join others in showing that, even for high functioning individuals, ASD is associated with poorer emotion regulation and higher negative affect.

Higher Functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is Associated with Improved Emotion Regulation

While individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) generally may be less able to regulate their emotions and handle frustration than neurotypical individuals, we might reasonably expect higher functioning individuals with ASD to be better able to control their emotions than those who are lower functioning. In this article, Konstantareas and Stewart report data supporting this expectation, but they also found that higher functioning individuals experienced higher negative affectivity including more negative emotions such as anger or sadness and potentially lower self-esteem.

Does High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder Lead to More Difficulty Regulating Emotions?

High-functioning individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) sometimes get very upset and angry. Because other people get upset and angry too, one might wonder whether people with ASD are more likely than others to do so. If so, Samson and colleagues reasoned that people with high-functioning ASD may have more difficulty regulating their emotions. These researchers therefore compared 27 high-functioning ASD research participants with 27 matched neurotypical controls. They found that participants with high-functioning ASD experienced higher levels of negative emotions than the controls and were more likely to have difficulty regulating their emotions.