Previous research has shown that children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with emotion regulation. However, not much is known about the strategies that these children apply...Show morePrevious research has shown that children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with emotion regulation. However, not much is known about the strategies that these children apply when they regulate their emotions. Furthermore, parental emotion awareness may play an important role in emotion regulation strategies, but to our knowledge, this has not yet been studied. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare emotion regulation strategies between children with ASD and healthy controls while they experienced negative emotions. Furthermore, we examined whether maternal emotion awareness differed between mothers of children with ASD and mothers of healthy controls, and explored whether maternal emotion awareness was related to children’s emotion regulation strategies. Seventeen children with ASD and 25 typically developing children between the ages of 3 and 7 years were tested. Children performed a task that elicited frustration while their emotion regulation strategies were videotaped and later coded. The Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) was used to assess maternal emotion awareness. Results showed that compared to healthy controls, children with ASD tended to use more alternate strategies and less goal-directed action while completing the task. Furthermore, children with ASD more often applied emotion regulation strategies in which they engaged in distraction, self-speech, vocal venting, and self-soothing. No differences were found in the use of social support seeking strategies. With respect to maternal emotion awareness, the results showed that mothers of children with ASD were less aware of their emotions than mothers of control children. In addition, when looking at the total sample, a relation was found between lower levels of maternal emotion awareness and the use of more distraction as an emotion regulation strategy. Implications for interventions and future research are discussed.Show less
