Given the widespread occurrence and negative consequences of anxiety disorders in children, it is crucial to investigate the factors preceding their development. While environmental factors and...Show moreGiven the widespread occurrence and negative consequences of anxiety disorders in children, it is crucial to investigate the factors preceding their development. While environmental factors and genetics are recognised as contributors to children’s anxiety symptoms, parents’ internal processes such as emotion regulation strategies have not often been considered. This study is the first that aims to investigate the relationship between parental suppression and children’s anxiety symptoms. Further, it proposes that this relationship may be influenced by children’s age, implying this relationship being stronger for younger children. The study was a cross-sectional online survey which collected data from parent-child dyads (N = 189) over a period of one year. Parents completed the subscale of the Affective Styles Questionnaire to conduct parental suppression levels and children filled in the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders questionnaire to measure children’s anxiety symptoms. Against our expectations, parental suppression was not related to children’s anxiety symptoms and children’s age did not impact this relationship. A possible reason for this may be the lack of differentiation of suppressed parental emotions in this study. Nevertheless, our study contributes to the literature by investigating a unique research question utilising a large sample size while being cost-effective. Future research should focus on the effect that parental suppression of specific emotions such as anger or sadness has on children’s anxiety symptoms. Implications regarding the development of interventions targeting maladaptive parental emotion regulation strategies are discussed.Show less
Research master thesis | Developmental Psychopathology in Education and Child Studies (research) (MSc)
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Individuals with sex chromosome trisomies (SCT’s) have an increased risk for psychopathologies and behavioral problems. Cognitive factors during development could underly the development of...Show moreIndividuals with sex chromosome trisomies (SCT’s) have an increased risk for psychopathologies and behavioral problems. Cognitive factors during development could underly the development of psychopathologies. Adults with an extra X chromosome (Klinefelter) showed impaired emotional arousal and emotion regulation. However, not much is known about the manifestation of these impairments in children with SCT’s. Therefore, the current study focused on emotional arousal and emotion regulation strategies in children with SCT’s. It was also investigated if age moderated the differences in emotional arousal and emotion regulation strategies. One hundred-seven children with SCT’s and 102 nonclinical controls participated in this study. A frustration inducing task (locked-box task) was used to induce heightened emotional arousal, which was measured continuously using heart rate measures. The emotion regulation strategies were coded during the task as well. Results showed lower emotional arousability in the children with SCT’s as well as less frequent use of constructive and venting emotion regulation strategies. The difference in avoidance strategy use was moderated by age. As the current study found evidence for the manifestation of emotion regulation problems in the childhood of individuals with SCT’s, it could be that these impairments are part of the underlying mechanism of the development of psychopathologies as well as possible targets for intervention.Show less
There are indications that children with autism have difficulties with emotion regulation. Therefore, the emotion regulation strategies of children with autism in comparison with typically...Show moreThere are indications that children with autism have difficulties with emotion regulation. Therefore, the emotion regulation strategies of children with autism in comparison with typically developing children were the target of this study. Because the development of emotion regulation skills is highly dependent on the influence of the mother, the empathy of the mother was also examined. The differences in emotion regulation strategies between children with autism and a non-clinical control group and the relationship with the empathy of the mother were tested in a laboratory session at Centre for Autism. The sample consisted of 53 mothers with their children, divided into a clinical group of children with autism (N = 19) and a non-clinical control group (N = 34). The age of the children varied between 41 and 81 months, with a mean of 56.91 months (SD = 11.27). To measure the emotion regulation strategies, the children were exposed to an anxiety-provoking situation: the Mechanical Toy Paradigm. The empathy of the mother was determined by the self-assessment questionnaire Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Children with autism showed significantly more avoidance and non-constructive emotion regulation strategies than children in the control group. No difference was found in the use of constructive emotion regulation strategies between children with autism and the control group. Mothers from the clinical group and control group did not differ in the degree of empathy. There was no significant correlation between empathy of the mother and emotion regulation strategies of the child. Conclusion: children with autism have difficulties with regulating their emotions and this was not related to empathy of the mother. There is a need for future research on the behave of improving emotion regulation strategies for children with autism. Interventions could include co-emotion regulation of the mother, because children with autism also seem to view their mother as a source of assistance.Show less
