Emotion Regulation and Anger Expression in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Emotion regulation (ER) is an important aspect of children’s emotional and social development. It maximizes learning and allows the development of trusting relationships. ER is particularly relevant for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children with ASD have frequent behavioural disturbances that are believed to derive from low ER capacities. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between ER and anger expression in children with ASD compared to typically developing (TD) children. Participants were 29 children aged from 5 to 12 years old. 8 children were diagnosed with ASD accompanied by intellectual and language impairments, 9 children were diagnosed with ASD without intellectual or language impairments, and 12 were TD children. ER was assessed by parents’ reports of their child’s ER and anger expression by the observation of children during a frustration-eliciting situation. Analyses of variance revealed that children with ASD were evaluated by their parents as having lower ER than TD children and, that children with ASD demonstrated more anger-related behaviours than TD children. However, no differences were found between the two groups of children with ASD for ER or anger expression. This shows that intellectual or language impairments in ASD are not key-factors on how parents perceive their children’s ER or on how they express anger. Moreover, a negative correlation was found between ER and expressed anger. These results stress the necessity of developing interventions for teaching adequate ER strategies to children with ASD.