Abstract
Little is known about the development of self-regulation processes during the preschool period in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). How parental characteristics such as the broader autism phenotype (BAP) relate to children’s self-regulation is not well understood. Preschool-aged children with (n = 24) and without ASD (n = 21) completed an inhibitory control task and mothers reported on child emotion regulation and their own BAP traits. Children with ASD had lower emotion regulation, and emotion regulation was a protective factor in the association between ASD and internalizing behavioral concerns. Lability/negativity was highly overlapping with externalizing. Maternal BAP characteristics were differentially associated with all self-regulation outcomes across groups. Parental factors should be considered in emotion regulation interventions for young children with ASD.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by a Dissertation Award from the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Student and Early Career Council, a Graduate Student Research Award from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at Notre Dame, and a grant from the Earnest Swarm Notre Dame Psychopathology Research Fund (all awarded to C.G. McDonnell). We are grateful to the Logan Center, South Bend Schools Autism Division, and South Bend Head Start for facilitation of recruitment. We are also grateful to Dr. Joshua John Diehl, Dr. E. Mark Cummings, Dr. David Smith, Dr. Julie Braungart-Rieker, and Heidi Miller for their guidance and contributions to this project, as well as the undergraduate research team who worked on this project (Bailey Jaeger, Catherine Finney, and Elizabeth Whiteman). Lastly, we are very grateful for the children and families who participated in this study. This study was prepared from Dr. C.G. McDonnell’s doctoral dissertation.
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EAD conceived and drafted the manuscript and performed statistical analyses. MPM conducted data collection, assisted with statistical analyses, and assisted with review and editing of the manuscript. TMA assisted with statistical analyses and with drafting the manuscript. KV provided supervision and project administration as well as assisting with review and editing of the manuscript. CGM aided with conceptualization, supervised data collection and curation, wrote part of the manuscript, and acquired funding for the project. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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DeLucia, E.A., McKenna, M.P., Andrzejewski, T.M. et al. A Pilot Study of Self-Regulation and Behavior Problems in Preschoolers with ASD: Parent Broader Autism Phenotype Traits Relate to Child Emotion Regulation and Inhibitory Control. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 4397–4411 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05322-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05322-z