Emotional Dysregulation in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder-A Sample of Romanian Children.

Cristina Costescu,Serge Thill,Mălina Șogor,Adrian Roșan

doi:10.3390/ijerph182010683

Abstract

Emotional dysregulation problems seem to affect more than 80% of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and may include irritability, aggressive behaviors, self-injury, and anxiety. Even though these types of problems are very common and affect the well-being of individuals with ASD, there are no objective assessment tools developed for this population and there are only a few intervention techniques meant to address these symptoms. This study investigates the feasibility of using off-the-shelf wearable devices to accurately measure heart rate, which has been associated with emotional dysregulation, and to test the effectiveness of functional communication training in reducing the emotional outburst in preschoolers with ASD. We used a single-case experiment design with three preschoolers with ASD to test if the duration of the emotional outburst and the elevated heart rate levels can be reduced by using functional communication training. Our results show that for two of the participants, the intervention was effective in reducing the duration of behaviors associated with emotional outburst, and that there were significant differences between baseline and intervention phase in terms of heart rate levels. However, our results are inconclusive regarding the association between elevated heart rates and the occurrence of the emotional outburst. Nevertheless, more research is needed to investigate the use of off-the-shelf wearable devices in predicting challenging behaviors in children with ASD.

Highlights

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represent a range of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interactions and repetitive behaviors, stereotype behaviors and restricted interests [1], and are estimated to affect 13 to 29 per 1000 children aged 8 years old [2]
The intensity, frequency and duration of the behaviors associated with the emotional outbursts vary a lot and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in overcoming these problems
There are several studies showing the association between the occurrence of challenging behaviors and heart rate modifications [33,34,35,36,37,38]; we consider the use of off-theshelf wearable devices for the monitoring of heart rate in order to predict emotional outbursts to be a novel idea that still needs to be investigated in further studies

Summary

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represent a range of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interactions and repetitive behaviors, stereotype behaviors and restricted interests [1], and are estimated to affect 13 to 29 per 1000 children aged 8 years old [2]. 80% of people with ASD have associated emotional regulation (ER) problems, which may include irritability, aggression, self-injury, anxiety, depression or impulsivity [3,4]. According to Thompson, ER represents “extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one’s goals” [5]. He outlines some possible methods that can help in regulating emotions: a. Attributions—reinterpreting the situation in a way that can alter the emotional reaction; d. Exposure to environment—when one context may help the person improve their emotional state; f.

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